Last Humans
by MercuryinRetrograde
Summary: Rimmer as Ace comes back to Red Dwarf trailing a whole lot o' bad. Red Dwarf ends up in the midst of a interdimensional, transgalactic war between..er..that's classified. Please read the chapter headings, there are warnings for offensive content.Slash.Het
1. Ace Returns

Red Dwarf Fanfic: Last Humans

Prolog : Ace Returns

Summary: Wherein Lister does something he regrets, holo!Rimmer as Ace returns and nano!Rimmer gets shot.

Warnings: Character death, slash & het implications, some graphic violence

Beta: Roadstergal, Rack, Cazflibs

Chapter Rating: T(PG-13), Violence, Mature Themes

(ooo)

Ace Returns

(ooo)

//Dimension 00-01

//Ship Serial No: Wildfire UPSC66350

//Ship's Time: 07:44-03.20-000.402

//AI-Wildfire: Chronometer Registered at Dimension Jump 00-00

//AI-Wildfire: SHIP CHRONOMETER RE-INITIALIZED AT 000.000.407 POST DIMENSION JUMP 00-00

//AI-Wildfire: CHRONOMETER RE-INITIALIZED DURING MORALITY DOWNGRADE OMEGA1145

Commander Arnold "Ace" Rimmer knelt beside his own corpse. His shoulders were shaking: his soft-light skin burned.

"Proximity Alert—Jupiter Mining Core space vessel Red Dwarf—10 clicks and closing," his ship— the Wildfire— intoned.

Ace forced his watering eyes open and glanced over the back of the command chair into the cramped cock-pit. Outside, through the canapé, a red ship the size of an asteroid rose over the Wildfire's nose, blotting out the stars.

He turned back to his corpse. The shock had worn off; now, seeing himself—limp, slack-jawed, white-eyed—it made him queasy. The cowardly part of him woke up and quailed at the sight. Trapped in a small space with your own corpse? _Had_ to be a bad omen.

Ace tried to pull the blond wig off his corpse's head. His hand slipped through it. A familiar rush of anger, frustration and fear raced through him. He'd spent so much time as hard-light he'd forgotten what it was like to be a ghost.

He stood, aimed a thought at his projection unit—his light bee. He didn't feel any different but when he knelt to pick up the blond wig a second time, it came off in his hand. He slipped it over his head, blond bangs fell into his eyes and he pulled them back, tucking them behind his ear. He always hated the wig, but it made him feel different. More Ace and less Rimmer.

Without it, his corpse looked somewhat pathetic, with its ratty mat of gingerish brown hair, huge nostrils and pale lips.

Pushing against the Wildfire floor, he let himself float up and over the command chair. Tucking his legs to his chest he pushed off the canapé, slid into the chair and harnessed himself down.

Being afraid at the sight of his own corpse was a good sign—even if the fear was _beastly _to control. It meant he was pulling back from blank fury.

With a practiced move he flicked on the com unit. It sparked—he'd bodged it with a haphazard solder job—and sent out a hail.

"JMC Red Dwarf, this is the Wildfire. Commander Ace Rimmer requesting clearance to dock. Please respond."

"Wildfire, this is Red Dwarf." The operator, a dark-skinned woman with a twist of shiny black hair over her temple, smiled at him from the com screen. "I have to say we didn't expect to see anyone else out this far into deep space. Certainly not a Space Corps commander."

"You are a sight for space-sore eyes." Rimmer grinned at her. "I've searched ten parsecs to find Red Dwarf." He'd spent the last few months thinking it was insane, trying to find a fat, red needle in a haystack the size of the galaxy core. But here they were. And here he was.

"I'm calling in your request now." She half turned from the camera, holding her hand over her operator's headset. She frowned.

Ace bit the inside of his cheek. "A problem?"

She shook her head. "Just a holdup."

"If you need to help things along, tell Captain Hollister I can help get him to his Europa drop."

The operator half turned. Ace couldn't hear what she said, but she turned back to him, a smile on her full lips. "You've been cleared to land, Commander Ace Rimmer. I'm initiating the handshake. Ship's time is May 20th, 2343. Oh-two hundred hours."

Ace flicked on auto-pilot and watched Red Dwarf's bay doors swing into view. As the Wildfire approached, the doors gaped open. The craft slid through and he was in, watching the grey steel walls of the outer bay slip past.

The Wildfire came to a halt, shuddered as the wheels locked into the auto-transport rail and taxied towards the air lock.

Ace was plunged into a moment of darkness as the air lock doors closed. The lock pressurized, gravity re-asserted itself, making him light-headed and breathless. The doors opened and he was moving once again into the inner bay, pulled by the rail into an empty spot in a line of larger ship to surface transports—the Starbugs, a row of bulbous green whale-sized ants and the Blue Midgets, a line of tank sized roaches on stilts.

The Wildfire jerked to a stop. Ace pressed the releases on the Wildfire's canapé and hit the lift button. With a pop and a hiss the seals broke and the canapé rose. He pulled himself out of the cockpit and climbed down the metal ladder bolted to the fuselage onto the Wildfire wing. He jumped the last eight feet, landing easily.

A dark haired man twitched up to Ace, flanked by black-suited guards.

"Security Chief Thornton." Ace acknowledged.

Thornton's eyes narrowed. "Have we met?"

"Your badge." Ace nodded to the man's chest.

"Right." Thornton chewed once then spat. Ace stifled a gag. "Cap'n wants to see you."

"Of course." Ace nodded. "Lead on."

The corridors were exactly as Ace remembered. Grey, grey and more grey. He'd once known the subtle distinctions between the greys, some were gun-metal, others military grey, one was more of a taupe… He used to memorize random nonsense like that, when he was _Arnold _Rimmer. Fantasizing a superior quizzing him on the various greys and finding out he knew them all by heart. And then Rimmer'd finally earn merit points in that invisible network that always seemed to be helping someone else out.

Ace grit his teeth, embarrassed by the person he'd been. Now he couldn't give a toss about the history, symbolism and protocol of the various greys. More important was the .44 Thornton was carrying concealed under his jacket, the carbines the two guards had in their hands, and the various other hidden weapons that revealed themselves in the stiffness of a stride or the way a guard held his arm just so.

Back then, the weapons had been as meaningless to Arnold Rimmer—like props in some macho pantomime—as the greys were to him now. Arnold had never conceived of being _shot_ _at. _

Thornton stopped at the entrance to the Captains' Office. Ace was surprised. Hollister had rolled his fat carcass out of bed at this ship's hour? Must be desperate.

Thornton keyed open the lock and Ace walked in, passing through the sitting room and into the main office. Hollister sat behind his desk, looking every inch the bureaucrat, right down to his rotating dolly full of forms and his rubber stamp collection—buffed to a shine.

"Captain Hollister." Ace offered, inclining his head and clasping his hands behind his back, standing with his feet shoulder-width apart.

"Commander Ace Rimmer." Hollister smiled. "You look nearly identical to a crew-member—"

"Arnold Rimmer? I'm a hard-light hologrammatic copy of him. But I assure you, Captain, I'm not the same man on the inside."

"Hard light you say? So you have an effective physical presence?"

Ace nodded.

"Fascinating technology. Our holograms are insubstantial soft-light."

Ace thought of his corpse, currently dissolving into its constituent elements, voxels—nanobots programmed to simulate the minutest functions of the human body. _You don't know the half of it, Hollister_. "Indeed, Captain."

"So, Ace," Hollister leaned back in his chair, watching Ace Rimmer with narrowed eyes, "about our Europa drop…?"

Ace's grip tightened behind his back. "You're three million light years from home. Three million _years_ from your own time. You're trying to navigate your way back." Ace tilted his head. "I can help, Captain. Close by is an installation called a StarTransit™ hub. They're not common this far from the Earth-end of the galaxy."

Hollister waved a dismissive hand. "Yes, we picked up the signal a month ago. We were on our way when you popped up." He eyed Rimmer.

"You won't be able to use the StarTransit™ Hub, Hollister. Not without technology that I control." Ace leaned back on his heels, folding his hands over his chest. "I'll give you access to it on two conditions. One, I want a private room—crew quarters will do. Two, I need access to your Flour Thirteen prisoners."

"What for?"

"I'm not at liberty to tell you." Ace leaned into Hollister's desk, staring him down.

Hollister's jowls wobbled. "What will that StarTransit™ hub do?"

"Take you home." Ace replied. "In space and time."

(ooo)

//Ship Serial No: Red Dwarf JMC66350

//Ship's Time: 03:29-05.21-002.343

//AI-Holly-Executive: Chronometer reinitiated 02:31-05.27-002.342

//AI-Holly-Executive: Estimated lapse prior to reinitiation: 3x10(6) SOLAR YEARS

The claxon whined, a long, rolling whine that slid into Dave Lister's ears like a pair of greased fish hooks.

Lister turned over and pulled his pillow over his head, pressing into the mattress. It dulled out the sharp bits, but only just.

"Get up, Listy!"

Someone was pulling on his arm. He yanked it back and buried further into his bunk. "Nnn..."

"Up, Listy!" The hands moved to his leg, jerking hard enough to drag his arse over the bunk and half off. He yelped and sat up, the pillow falling away. All at once the un-muffled noise and the throbbing red light hit him. He grimaced, hiding his head in his hands and sniffling.

"Up and at 'em, boyo."

Lister shielded his eyes with a hand and looked down at his bunk mate and fellow prisoner. Even Rimmer looked limp and red-eyed. "Wha' time is it Rimmer?"

Rimmer glanced at the communicator-cum-personal-computer strapped to his wrist. "Holly, what's the time?"

Holly— bald and bland—bobbed in his black background on the communicator screen, a striped blue pyjama topper with pom-pom perched on his head. "Half past three."

"Smeggin' hell." Lister jumped down from the top bunk. "What's going on then, Hol?"

"Don't know, as I'm no longer the ship's computer. Bit in the dark all around, actually."

"Ha ha." Rimmer pulled his lavender prison-issue jumpsuit over his undershirt. "So there's nothing you can tell us?"

"I can tell you this. A one-man craft recently docked with the Red Dwarf."

"How do yeh know that then, Hol?" Lister zipped up his jumpsuit, yawning.

"Bob told me."

"A skutter?" Rimmer sneered. "You, a computer with an IQ of 6000, are getting information from a skutter? A service robot with all the computational power of an abacus?"

"I'll tell him you said that, Arnold." Holly replied, deadpan. "It don't matter my IQ if I've got no input to compute."

"'It don't matter...'" Rimmer muttered in a very good and snarky impersonation of Holly's mellow-to-the-gills voice.

Lister shook his head. He never thought he'd say it, but he missed his Rimmer. The new Rimmer—or rather the old Rimmer—just wasn't the same. He frowned to himself, pulling on his boots and lacing them up. He regretted urging his old smeghead Arnold Rimmer to become Ace Rimmer, Space Corps Commander and all around great guy. Lister sighed. His Rimmer was probably a corpse now.

A guard rattled their prison grating with the butt of his semi-automatic rifle. "Ready to go, love birds? Your lazy arses need to be in the pit by oh-four-hundred."

(ooo)

Lister waited in the pit, standing with his mates in row two of nine with fifty other level thirteen prisoners- the entire population of G-Tower. Kochanski looked like something the Cat had coughed up. Her hair resembled a porcupine with dropsy, and she didn't acknowledge Lister aside from muttering "Steamed milk and a breakfast muffin, please." After that she'd milled rather quietly alone by herself, eyes closed.

Cat was alert, his black hair quoiffed to a shine. He'd managed to scrounge up an apricot ascot. It complemented his dark skin and spruced up his regulation prisoner's uniform. Cat was never anything but well-rested, no matter the hour. He droned in Lister's ear a rant on how lavender made his ass look so wide he'd have to show his home videos in a planetarium.

Rimmer remained quiet. Lister glanced his way when Cat took a breath. He looked more then tired and disorientated, he looked depressed. Lister hadn't figured out why he switched between chumminess and sullen, tetchy standoffishness. His Rimmer had worked through some dark, personal issues—and become better for it—but this Rimmer was even more closed off and tight lipped. Going nowhere fast.

Lister sighed and started humming to himself to lighten his mood. Cat explained that the existence of mauve trousers was the reason the universe hadn't folded in on itself in depressed self-loathing.

"Do you have to do that?" Rimmer asked.

"Do what?" Lister replied.

"Hum. Inanely. Like that." Rimmer crossed his arms, leaning so he was eye-level with Lister. "It's making me go spare." He spat out the last word in Lister's souse accent

"Rimmah—"

"Gentlemen!" Warden Ackerman's voice carried over the throng.

Lister and Rimmer snapped to attention. Cat straightened with a flourish and Kochanski emitted a soft, wuffing sound.

Lister poked her.

"Is it time for brunch already, mother?" She mumbled, then looked around and recognized where she was. "Oh, smeg."

"We have a visitor." Ackerman tapped the gantry railing with his truncheon. "A distinguished gentleman in... bacofoil trousers."

Lister perked at the word 'bacofoil', turning to Rimmer with a grin. "I think—"

"Silence!" Ackerman thundered. A guard at the end of the row fondled his gun menacingly and smiled at Lister. Lister straightened, looking forward.

"Come forward." Ackerman gestured to someone behind him, a form shadowed by the third story gantry. The man stepped forward into the light and light reflected off of his shiny gold flight suit.

"Ace!" Lister didn't realize he'd called out till the man turned to look at him. "Ace, it's me, Lister! Down here, man!" Lister stepped forward, watching Ace on the gantry. The man's face betrayed a hint of annoyance - or was it anger? Then it stiffened itself into a chipper mask.

The butt of a JMC issue automatic rifle slammed into Lister's shoulder. He spun and fell back, colliding with Cat with a grunt. Kochanski, reached out a hand to steady him. He glanced up at her—her eyes flicked between a thin-lipped Rimmer beside her—his nostrils flared in confusion and disgust—and Ace in his bacofoil suit on the gantry.

"Steady on, chum." Lister looked over at the sound of Ace's voice, watching as Ace clapped Ackerman on the back. "No need to be rough on the old dogs."

"Is that him?" Rimmer hissed at Lister.

Lister glanced at his bunkmate. "Yeah. That's him. I think."

"You think?" Rimmer's nostrils flared in irritation. "You lived with the man for how many years and you can't tell?"

"Yeh don't understand, man; it's confusing."

"Confusing? How many 'me's' are there? One for every day of the week?"

"One for every dimension, man. Infinite."

The guard who had given Lister the love tap grunted and waved his rifle butt. Rimmer returned to attention. Lister tried to stand straighter, but the motion pulled on his smarting shoulder. He could only manage a wobbly half stoop. Kochanski caught his arm and held him. Lister didn't dare turn to her to thank her, but he slipped his hand down from his injured shoulder to squeeze her fingers.

"Now, then; where were we before we were so rudely interrupted?" Ackerman flicked his truncheon, managing to make the inch and a half thick stick of wood look prim. "Yes. This is Commander Ace Rimmer. Captain Hollister's authorized him to commandeer a couple of convicts—" Ackerman leaned back from the gantry railing and glanced at Ace. "My, you do look familiar."

Ace smiled. "I'm a hard-light hologrammatic copy of one of your prisoners."

"Oh, are you?" Ackerman squinted at Ace then down into the pit, sniffing. "I really can't tell. They all look alike to me. All ghastly bristle. Evil, evil men." Ackerman tapped his club against the palm of his hand.

Ace inclined his head towards the pit, "Shall I get on with it, then?"

Ackerman nodded, "Quite."

Ace walked down the stairs. "Evening, gents. Sorry to take up your quality Ackerman time. I'm sure he usually has you all in stitches." Ace stopped to grin at the men and women in the pit. A few wan smiles greeted him.

Ackerman preened behind Ace, "I do what I can to keep my prisoners happy."

Ace stopped at the bottom of the stair and rolled his eyes. "I'm sure you're more fun than a freighter full of astrolube colliding into a convention of porn-stars."

A few convicts around Lister chuckled. Ace threaded his way through the convicts towards Lister. Lister grinned at him, fighting the urge to break ranks and run to Ace.

"Yer alive," Lister said as Ace stopped in front of him. He wanted to pull Ace into a hug, but Ace held himself at an angle that said, quite clearly, "piss off." Lister settled for clutching Kochanski's fingers.

"You expected any less of me?" Ace chucked Lister's shoulder, his voice genial. But his eyes pinched at the corners, settling on anything but Lister's face. He turned from Lister towards Rimmer. "So this is the man of the hour?" He clapped Rimmer's upper arms, catching hold.

"Get off me, you goit," Rimmer snapped, slapping Ace's hands away. "I don't want to catch whatever space-rot made you dress like a member of the gay Space-Mountie musical ride." Rimmer glanced at the prisoners around them. "Having you in here is like waving around a double-fudge chocolate with lager-flavoured filling. I'm surprised they haven't tried to unwrap you with their teeth."

Ace grimaced, muttering, "It's a fun-house mirror. Git-o-version."

Rimmer opened his mouth to snark. Lister pushed between them, cutting him off. "Shouldn't you be finishin' up what you came here for... Ace?"

"Right you are. So... where were we?" He turned to Rimmer. "You're coming with me."

"What if I refuse on the grounds that I won't be seen dead with a poncy twonk in tinfoil trousers?"

"No choice, chum. Captain's orders." Ace turned to Lister, still not-looking at him. "Where's Kryten?"

"Maintenance. He had a rather hard hit on the head a few weeks ago. Jumbled up his circuits, it did."

"Then you're coming with me." Ace turned, jerking his head towards the stairs. "Let's go."

"Wait!" Lister looked back at Kochanski and Cat. Cat was grinning inanely and silently at Ace. He'd learned his lesson about speaking out of turn, and it'd only taken a couple dozen beatings or so. Kochanski stared at them both in confusion. Lister shrugged at her and cocked his head at Cat. Kochanski could handle herself, but Cat...? How long was Rim—Ace taking them for? What was he taking them for? "Just us?"

Ace glanced back at him. "Yes."

(ooo)

Lister chewed on one of his Rasta plaits as he trotted behind Ace through prison security. He'd had to stop now and again to fetch Rimmer, who'd decided to voice his dissatisfaction by walking slower then Lister's grandma after six pints of bitter. In between hurrying Rimmer up, Lister had tried to think of a way to open up the conversation with Ace. _Glad to see yeh man, how yeh been? _Ace's stiff shoulders were about as inviting as a punch in the nose.

Ace led them off the prison floor into the lift to the main decks, waving the prison guard escort off. "I can handle it from here."

On the crew decks, Lister caught beige clad JMC personnel staring after him, probably wondering what his lavender kit was all about. Or Ace's bacofoil suit... Lister looked at the man's back, chewing and pondering what had happened to him over the last two years. He was different. Very different from his Rimmer. Ace moved with confidence. Or maybe it was urgency? Or maybe this wasn't his Rimmer at all?

"All right, gents. Here we are."

They'd stopped in front of a door. Ace pressed his palm against the key lock. It slid open.

"Officer's deck, penthouse suite."

Penthouse suite it was. Lister glanced around. On the old Red Dwarf there hadn't been anything nearly this posh - a room with a common area and separate sleeping quarters—with working doors—off to either side. "Ace... I mean _Arn_…" He began. "How was it then... er... I mean becomin' Ace?"

Ace turned, looking at Lister, his face blank.

"I mean, there's been things I wanted to tell yeh. Things I realized while yeh were gone." Lister rubbed the back of his neck. "I missed—"

"Hold on. Won't be a jiff." Ace grimaced and ran for one of the bedrooms. The door closed behind him.

Lister watched him go, then hopped up onto a table bunted up against the wall. He slid across its top until he was pressed against the knobbly white wall panel. He ran his fingers over the plastic texture, picking at it with his nails. It was the same stuff that'd lined the officer bunks on the old Dwarf; Lister had found it funny then. Wall-mounted bath mats were a staple of toff life?

"Stop it." Rimmer snapped. "Can't you go anywhere without indulging in idle destruction?"

Lister grunted and leaned his head back against the wall. "Piss off, Rimmer."

The second technician sneered at him. He then took an exaggerated step forward and turned to face the same way as Lister, ending the motion by rocking on the balls of his feet. "So this madman in foil pantaloons is supposed to be me?"

"Would be yeh." Lister pulled his legs up onto the table and sat cross-legged. "That is, if yeh'd lived the past six years as him." Lister squinted, thinking how stupid what he'd just said sounded. "I mean, he isn't an alternate you. He is yeh, but the you that yeh would, will be when yeh've lived yer past future."

"Right. Well that clears that up. So what's he come back for? Missed his old snogging partner?"

Lister frowned. Had Rimmer really started out this bitter? "Yeh acted just like this the last time. Same attitude. Everythin'."

"Last time what?"

"Last time yeh met yerself. I mean he met hisself. The last time he met Ace. Before he became Ace."

"Listy, no matter how many times you explain it, it makes no sense." Rimmer smiled at him like he was a four year old.

"Yeah. I know."

"He doesn't look a thing like me." Rimmer sniffed.

"What?" Lister looked up at him. "He's identical to yeh, Rimmer."

"No he isn't. The hair, for one. That gay hippy hair." Rimmer tugged at one of his short, darkish curls. "Does that look long and blond to you? And there's something else about him. The way he moves. I don't know." Rimmer waved his hands. "His smug gittishness. His belle of the ball air. That can't be me, Lister."

Lister sighed and started to pick at the plastic paneling again. "It is you. Yeh said the same smeggin' things the last time. I mean he said the same things."

"So why's he here?"

Lister fidgeted, his boots bouncing against the table top. "I don't know." He lied. Lister had a good idea why. He glared at his fingers, trying to blot out the image of a billion tiny, blinking coffins, each one containing a version of Arnold Rimmer cum Ace Rimmer, Space Corps Commander, tracing out a red scar through space.

Rimmer watched him steadily. Lister couldn't meet his stare, but Lister could feel the gears moving in the smeghead's mind.

A slam echoed from the room Ace had entered. Lister jumped up off the table, and Rimmer half-turned to look. Ace screamed.

Lister was at the door to the room in three over-heated paces, pounding on it, "Rimmer! Rimmer!"

"What is it, you gimboid? I'm right here." Rimmer had followed him to the door.

Lister shook his head. "Not you. R—Ace! Are yeh okay?"

"Capital," came the strained reply. "Won't be a moment."

Silence.

Lister chewed hard on his plait.

The door slid open.

"Ace!" Lister jumped to the man's side, moving forward to help.

"Stop." Ace held up a hand. His face shone with sweat. He'd stripped the blond Ace wig from his head. "Sorry. Can't be touched right now."

Rimmer stared at the mussed mirror of his own gingery curls, revealed from under the wig. "Smeg," he said under his breath.

Ace stooped over to a chair in the common area, and fell into it.

"What's wrong?" Lister hurried to his side, kneeling down to eye level.

"Listy, you're such a git." Ace reached out a hand. His fingers barely brushed Lister's face, but as soon as they made contact Ace flinched away, wincing. "My clock's cleaned, as that smegging goit would say."

"No way, man!" Lister stood and turned away, shaking his head. "No way!"

"Yes, Listy. Didn't you figure out that my life expectancy had taken a bit of a tumble once I slipped on the wig?"

Lister turned around. "How long?"

"Rather less then my last incarnation's death, I suspect. Maybe an hour. And it won't be as pleasant." A shudder stripped Ace of his voice.

Lister watched Ace struggle, feeling all sorts of bad. "What's wrong?"

"I've burnt out my light bee, squire."

"Then we'll build you a new one! The nanobots—"

Ace shook his head. "Already burned through a body, Listy. I'm afraid what's wrong with me isn't in the hardware."

The plait fell from Lister's hands. "What do you mean?"

"It's all very metaphysical, apparently. I've maxed out some psychological metric, sending my bee into a infinite loop. I'm running at 100 computational power every cycle." Ace winced. "At least that's what that blasted computer told me. 'Have to recruit your successor,' she said. Bloody thing."

"So you're here to..." Lister looked at Rimmer.

Rimmer glared back.

"There's no way, Ace." Lister shook his head. This Rimmer wasn't even a tenth the man hologrammatic Rimmer had become. Which hadn't been much of a man at that. "Not this one."

Ace snorted and, for a moment, the old Rimmer was back, as he looked at Lister like he'd just suggested they watch a live action version of the Aeneid starring Hammy Hamster. "I'm not here to recruit the next Ace." He pinned Lister with a pained stare. "I'm not going to take him from you."

Lister started. "You think--?" He looked at Rimmer, half laughing. Rimmer looked back, baffled.

Ace slammed the chair armrest with his fist, then swore silently and swayed like he was about to pass out. When he regained himself, he continued, "Shut up, squire. I haven't time for this."

"Then what are you here for?" Lister groused.

"The last Ace didn't explain much at all. Particularly why there were so many... me's dead. I was caught up in-" Ace gasped as his image trembled and jerked apart, leaving bloody welts along the fracture edges. The welts healed in seconds, but not before Lister watched Ace go white and gag from the pain.

Lister reached out a hand. Ace jerked away. "Don't. Too much touch overloads my input buffer, and it gets clipped." He leaned back in the chair, hissing as the plether rubbed against the skin of his neck. "It's unpleasant."

"Change into soft-light."

"No use, Listy. I'm stuck like this."

"What happened, man?"

"A war," Ace replied. "It wasn't about being someone the universe can look up to with scads of wet rumpy-pumpy on the side. I don't know if it ever was, or if it was just my luck that changed it. A war, Lister. That's what I got. You will too, all of you. That's why I've come back."

"To warn us?"

"No." Ace looked at Rimmer. "I have something to give him."

(ooo)

"No smegging way!" Rimmer strode away from Lister, arms resolutely crossed over his chest. "Absolutely no smegging way!"

"But yeh heard him Rimmer! If yeh don't, we're dead."

"Oh yes? And have you seen him Lister? He looks like a jigsaw puzzle put together by half-wits. If whatever is in his head can melt circuits, what chance does my brain have against it?"

"Ace said it wouldn't affect yeh the same. He said-" Lister waved his hand, trying to piece the words together. "He said the human body was meant to deal with the... extremes of human psychology. A light bee isn't."

"Amazing, Lister. Where did you find all those big words? Webster's pop-up Thesaurus?" Rimmer bobbed on his heels. "What does it matter if this thing will catch up to us in - what, months? Years? - if my brain is a puddle of congealing jelly tomorrow?"

"Yer a coward."

"Right you are, Listy," Rimmer said. "I am a coward."

Lister turned away from Rimmer in disgust, putting his hands on the table.

A gunshot splinted the plexi-steel tabletop. Lister jumped back, turning.

Ace stood in the doorway to the first sleeping quarters, his shoulder hard up against the door jam. In one hand he carried a smoking pistol; in the other a black box.

"You shot me." Rimmer held his hand against his shoulder. Blood seeped from between his fingers.

Lister looked from Ace to him and back.

"I grazed you." Ace countered, his pistol hand shaking.

"You could have killed me." Rimmer's voice was high, hysterical.

"You'll be dead today if you don't do as I say." Ace shoved the box at Lister and waved the pistol towards the table. "Sorry, squire. I don't have any more time for niceties. It's a Remote Brainwave Simulator. Remember? Get him strapped in."

Lister stared at Ace. "Yeh... Yeh can't do this."

"I can." Ace cocked the pistol hammer, pointing at Rimmer's head. "Get him ready. Now."

Lister took the black box and slipped it onto the table, catching Rimmer by his uninjured arm. "Listen to the man." He eyed Ace, wondering if he really was his Rimmer. He didn't recognize the look of bleak determination in his hazel eyes.

Rimmer offered no resistance as Lister pushed him down onto the chair in front of the simulator. Lister felt the second technician shaking. Shock, Lister thought and looked at Rimmer's hand, streaked with blood. It wasn't flowing fast; the wound wasn't deep. But this Rimmer wasn't used to injury or pain of any sort. Lister squeezed the man's uninjured arm.

"Here." Ace handed Lister a pulse-hypo. His hand shook as welts streaked it then faded. "A sedative. I can't... administer it like this."

Lister took it. Holding it felt unreal. Rimmer looked up at him, his face empty of emotion. "Don't worry. We did this a couple years ago. Me and--" Lister jerked his head towards Ace. "Him. It all worked out in the end." Lister tried to keep his voice level and calm. He offered a smile to fight against the empty look on Rimmer's face.

Lister caught Rimmer's arm, lifted it up, and pressed the hypo against the pulsing vein between bicep and inner elbow. Inanely, Lister wondered why such a craven physical coward kept fit.

Rimmer relaxed in the chair, his head slumping to the side. Lister took a moment to look at his injured right arm. Ace had been right. Just a graze, little more then a scratch.

"Faster," Ace snapped, jerking the muzzle of the pistol towards Rimmer's head.

Lister obeyed, fumbling the diodes out of their sheaths and suctioning them on Rimmer's face and neck. His hands shook.

"What about the mental emetic?" he asked.

"This isn't a swap, miladdio. It's a patch." Ace replied.

Lister nodded, swallowing.

"This isn't your fault, Listy. It's my fault. Full responsibility," Ace said, stepping up to the sedated Rimmer. "Remember that."

Lister nodded, again. Keep him talking, he thought. He searched his suddenly blank mind for another question. "What'll happen to him?"

Ace shook his head. "Can't tell for sure. Physically, he'll be fine." He caught Rimmer's jaw. "I don't know about the rest. He isn't that great to begin with." He pulled Rimmer's face towards him. "Like a funhouse mirror."

"How can yeh do this, man?" Lister asked, looking up at Ace.

Ace let go of Rimmer, hissing as skin slid against his hard light projection. "He would do the same if he knew what I know." Then he turned to look at Lister. "He'll be fine," he repeated, like a mantra.

"When does it happen?" Lister's throat felt like straw.

Ace smiled. "As soon as I'm dead."

"How long?" Lister asked, approaching the hologram slowly.

The other man closed his eyes. "A few minutes."

Lister slammed his fist down on Ace's forearm. He followed it up with an elbow to the side of the face.

Ace stumbled into the wall and slipped down to the ground.

The gun had fallen and skittered away across the floor. Lister lunged to retrieve it and leveled it towards Ace as he backed away. "Not today, Ace. Or whoever yeh are."

Ace struggled to sit up, propping himself on an elbow. He wiped his mouth, leaving a streak of blood across his cheek.

"Congratulations, Listy. You managed to thrash a dying man." He coughed, spitting up more blood. "What do you do for an encore? Jump old grannies in a park?"

"I'm sorry." Lister gasped. "I can't let you do this!"

"Why not? Do you think he even gives two smegging shits about you?"

Lister winced. "Do you?"

Ace pulled himself to a seated position, one arm propping him up, the other draped over a knee. "I do..." He looked at Rimmer. "But I didn't when I was him."

"He's gonna be you in six years!"

Ace got to his knees then stopped for a breath. "No he isn't, Listy. Not in six years, or two hundred. He's never going to be me."

Lister stepped back as Ace stood unsteadily. "He'll never be me. But I can give him those missing years back."

"But you said... You said you didn't know what would happen." Lister protested.

"I don't know. Not entirely. And I don't know how much he'll like the years I've lived." Ace stepped towards Lister, hand outstretched and shaking. "But there are things he needs to know how to do."

Lister took a breath, hoping his mind would supply him with an argument. None were forthcoming. Lister closed his mouth, shook his head and lowered the gun. "What do I do?"

"I've programmed the simulator. All you have to do is place my light bee in the socket."

"That's all?"

Ace nodded, "Yes. Do you want me to go in the other room?"

"Why?"

"Because I'm about to die in a very ghastly way." Ace leaned against the table, palms flat on the top.

Lister sniffled. "I'm sorry."

"What for?"

"You know. Pressuring you to be Ace."

"Did you?" Ace looked down at the black box, biting his lip against the pain. "I... I don't remember that."

"Then why did you-?"

Ace bowed his head. "I was tired of being a coward."

"There's all sorts of cowards, man. Remember that speech you gave me? After we met up with the holoship that woman was on? Minerva Stork? You are what other people think of you. You would have done anything to be somebody others looked up to. I thought I was helping you get that. I—"

Ace laughed, and the laugh turned into a heaving cough. His image convulsed and left bloody rents slicing his skin. He clamped his fingers tight against his arms. "Not...yet." he forced through gritted teeth.

"What, man? Now?" Lister lunged towards him, catching hold of Ace's arms, trying to smooth out the creases in his projection. It didn't work. It only smeared fizzing hologrammatic blood over Lister's hands.

Ace pressed his fingers against his stomach, then in, penetrating his own projection. He paused a moment to look at Lister, "keep the bee…"

Lister felt it when Ace's fingers closed over his own light bee, a shockwave that danced against his skin, sending prickles through his body.

"No!" Lister said, his hands scrabbling against Ace's shuddering image. "Wait!"

Ace crumpled like a wad of paper. Blood sluiced over the desk and onto the floor from thousands of rips in his body. Lister watched as he tried to straighten, tried to say something, and only spit up more blood. He watched as Ace faded away to nothing.

Lister was left watching the blood fade from his fingers, and then glanced at the light bee, buzzing and smoking on the desk where it had fallen.


	2. Side Part

Red Dwarf Fanfic: Last Humans

Chapter 1: Side Part

Summary: Wherein Lister exasperates Hollister, Cat gets punched and Rimmer decides he doesn't like his left side part.

Warnings: None

Beta: Roadstergal, Rack, Cazflibs

Chapter Rating: T(PG-13)

(ooo)

Side Part

(ooo)

//Dimension 0451

//Ship Serial No: Wildfire UPSC66350

//Ship's Time: 05:44-03.04-000.201

//AI-Wildfire: NUMBER OF NULL DIMENSIONS INCREASING EXPONENTIALLY

//AI-Wildfire: ACCESSING SPACE CORPS REGULATIONS GOVERNING AI-HUMAN INTERACTION

//AI-Wildfire: EXCEPTION THROWN: "UNREQUITED LOVE"

//AI-Wildfire: INITIATING SUBROUTINE: "MOONING"

"I've locked in on our target, Ace. Please be careful, it's turning null." The Wildfire's warning light blinked on and off.

Ace Rimmer opened the throttle and his ship slid into the space between dimensions. He couldn't understand what he was seeing—chaotic brightness fought with deep shadow, faces, planets, stars flashed and extinguished. His palms were slick with sweat as he rode the vertex—like trying to run a penny edgewise along a trapeze wire made of nano-filament.

His intuition kicked in. He tapped out a quick heal-toe downshift, slipped off the vertex, and found himself skimming the surface of a dimension. A stone skipping across a puddle.

"Ace. These dimension skips… they could tear you apart!" The computer sobbed.

"Keep it together, old girl, or they will."

"Intra…" The Wildfire's voice trembled; then strengthened as she caught hold of herself. "Intra-dimensional Target acquired."

Ace muscled the nose down, breaking the surface. A new reality submerged him. The sourness of despair. Things unsaid and burned to ash. This dimension was empty. Almost.

Empty of matter, at any rate. Nothing to pin down the laws of physics and make them work any particular way.

Ace was used to navigating these null dimensions. He formed an intention.

The Wildfire evaporated. Ace floated till his feet hit solid ground. He walked. Underneath him amber el tape marked out a path.

"Yellow lit road." He grinned.

Another intention and Dave Lister appeared before him—an old man sleeping on a bed Ace couldn't see.

Ace caught Dave's hand. Dave roused, turning to look at Ace. His skin was thin and pale, like brown-flecked paper. Defeat had settled in the hollows under Dave's eyes, in the tendons of his wrists. Ace's grip on Dave's hand tightened. "Hello."

"Ace." Dave replied. He made an attempt at sitting up. Ace helped him, pulling invisible pillows out of the air to prop his friend up.

"How do you know me?" Ace asked.

"I saw you, in the past. You have questions."

"There's another Wildfire, another Ace. Wherever he goes a dimension dies. I've been following him, trying to find out why." Ace hesitated. "Why is dimension dying?"

Dave held up his hand. "I agree with James. There is nothing more to be said or done."

"James? Who?"

"Ah. You're not _that_ Ace, yet." A water glass materialized as Dave's fingers touched it. He took a sip.

"Find… me. Find Bexley. Here—" Dave touched the void and something square and black rolled into his hand. "It's a piece of my Perpetual Inertia Engine—"

"Wait." Ace took it. "I need to know what the PIE is, what it does—did you use it to do this?" He shrugged around himself at the nullness of it all.

"The PIE is more then a way to get from A to B." Dave wheezed. Ace held Dave's twitching arm and waited. "It _responds_. It's the substance of a dream."

"Where did it come from?"

"The girl." Dave folded his hands over his chest. "It comes from her. She's waking up and the boundaries are falling away. Each falling wall is a PIE or a time-drive or a dimension jump. Bringing everything together again." Dave focused on a spot far away. "The girl stepping out of her own dream."

"What girl?"

Dave turned to Ace. His eyes were pinched.

"Are you in pain?" Ace asked.

"Yeah." Dave looked past Ace's shoulder, his eyes unfocused. "I resurrected him and he still died."

"This girl you're talking about?"

Dave's eyes closed. He smiled.

"Are you angry?" Ace's grip switched from Dave's wrist to his frail fingers.

Dave opened his eyes and shook his head, still smiling. "I'm tired of being stuck."

"I can't let this happen. Tell me what I do to stop it." He closed his eyes and clutched Dave's hand in both of his.

"Tell James I love him. Make him understand."

Something brushed Ace's temple. Ace looked up, his hands empty. A thought brought him back to the Wildfire cockpit. The digital readout of ship's time blinked 05:45-03.04-000.201.

"Oh Ace! I'm so glad you're safe."

"When we were in the interstice, did you get a lock on all the Null dimensions?"

"Yes, Ace. I did."

"List them."

Ace rubbed his temple as he listened to the Wildfire computer recite, breathlessly, the dimensions that had folded or _were_ folding into nothing.

(ooo)

Rimmer opened his eyes. He was in a stark white room—white walls, white curtains that framed a square of gun-metal grey bulkhead, a beeping white box—attached to his head by a length of tubing— and white sheets skin tight against his over-tucked-in body. The medical bay.

Rimmer pulled himself into a seated position, shaking sense back into his reality.

Why had he remembered being _Ace_?

(ooo)

//Ship Serial No: Red Dwarf JMC66350

//Ship's Time: 05:44-05.22-002.343

//AI-Holly-Executive: ANALYSIS OF LAPSE INDICATES TIME ANOMALY

//AI-Holly-Executive: HOLISTER IS A GIT

"Let's start with you explaining what happened, Mister Lister." Captain Hollister leaned over his desk, his over-soaked-sausage fingers pressed together at the tips. Over his shoulder a home holo shot in shaky optical stereo flickered on his view scene--A few frames of a rotund child picking his nose, a woman's thin face, then the camera steadied on the disembarkment ramp in a surface-to-space-port. Crowds of people passed the camera, jostling it.

Lister glanced away from the screen and picked up Hollister's name plaque. "Hrm. I'm not sure what yeh want to know, sir."

"What happened to Ace?" Hollister's knuckles went white as he gripped his desk top and lunged up out of his chair, his body shaking. "What happened to my_ Europa drop_?"

Lister stepped back. The plaque dropped out of his hands and clattered on the desk top. He blinked at Holister.

"Ah." Hollister smiled weakly in the face of Lister's stunned expression. "Ha… heh. Rhetorical question, Mister Lister." He settled back into his chair and steepled his fingers, his eyes held a manical sheen. "Let's start at the beginning, shall we? How did Mister Rimmer end up shot, Mister Lister?" The Captain paused to consult his notes. "And unconscious I might add." He picked up his pen and hovered over a form that read 'Crew Fatality/Injury Incident Report.' The 'injury' had been circled.

Lister switched his gaze to the ceiling, squinting. "I don't know, sir. I turned around and then, there he was, like... unconscious and shot."

Hollister's hand shook. He slammed it down against his desk.

Lister jumped a bit at the sound. He eyed Hollister.

"So that's what I should put in your statement, 'I don't know, sir, I turned around and then there he was, unconscious and shot.'"

Lister shrugged.

Hollister wrote a few words then paused. "Who did it?"

"Who did what, sir?"

"Who shot Rimmer?"

Lister chewed his lip. He looked up at Hollister. He looked past Hollister to his view screen. More camera jostling. A brief flash of words: 'O'Hare Space Port.' Lister continued. "He shot himself...?" As an afterthought Lister added, "Sir?"

A muscle twitched in Hollister's neck. He mouthed the word, "no."

"Somebody else shot him?" Lister glanced at Hollister hopefully.

Hollister nodded.

"It wasn't me, sir!" Lister said hastily.

"Who was it then? Commander Ace Rimmer?"

Lister looked back down at his boots, "I don't know."

"Lister. Three men went into the officer suite on D deck at 4:15 this morning. Video surveillance confirms this. You were one of the men, Mister Rimmer was the second, and the third was Commander Ace Rimmer, hard light hologrammatic copy of Mister Rimmer. You exited the room at 5:30, calling for a medic. Rimmer exited the room at 5:33 on a stretcher. Unless another person entered the room between 4:15 and 5:30, and we have no evidence of this... and I'll point out that our evidence also includes infrared signature scans conducted at 5 minute intervals in all personnel quarters as per JMC security protocol... either you or Commander Ace Rimmer shot him. So who did it?"

"I don't know... sir." Lister sighed. "But I didn't do it."

Hollister pressed his temples. He threw down his pen. "What happened to Ace?"

"He left, sir."

"He left?" Hollister leaned back in his chair; his eyebrows slowly retreated up his forehead as if trying to back away from the conversation without being noticed. "He left?"

The vid screen flashed. The thin woman handed the camera off to another person. Lister forced himself to look away from the home movie and catch Hollister's gaze, "Yeah, sir."

"Without our surveillance picking him up? After our infra-scan ceased registering Ace's hard-light emissions at 5:20?"

"Yeah, sir. He left." Lister's stomach churned. He grimaced.

"What's wrong, Mister Lister?"

"Just a cramp, sir."

"So... your official report of the incident is, 'I turned around, Mister Rimmer was shot and unconscious. And I don't know who shot him despite being one of only two conceivable suspects. Then I witnessed Ace Rimmer leave the room. Got up, walked out and left the room after being registered by the scanners in the room, as, for all intents and purposes, dead.'"

"That's about it sir, yeah." Lister folded his arms over his stomach, bending a bit at the waist. The churning had morphed into a low rumble.

"Do you know the punishment for a false statement, Mister Lister?" Hollister leaned back in his chair. It groaned under his weight.

"No sir."

"5 years in the brig."

"Erm." Lister remarked, nodding thoughtfully.

"I'll be interviewing Mister Rimmer as soon as he checks out of the medical bay." The Captain leaned forward again, hands folded over his chest. "If his statement differs, in any way, from yours..." Hollister trailed off, threateningly.

"He'll be doing 5 more years?" Lister asked, straightening up.

Hollister's mouth opened. No words came out. He closed it and pressed his fingers to his temple. "I want you to think about what happened. In particular I want you to think very carefully on what happened to_Commander Ace Rimmer_. If you happen to recall anything—and tell me in a timely fashion—I may just forget about the protocol regarding false statement. Dismissed, Mister Lister," he waved Lister away and focused his attention on his forms.

"Cap'n. Is Rimmer okay?"

"What? I don't know."

"Can I have permission to see him, sir?"

"No, Mister Lister. You can't have permission to see Mister Rimmer. For all I know you'll walk into sick bay and he'll get shot again by the same invisible third party."

"But how will I know if he's all right, sir?" Lister frowned.

"Lister."

"Yeah, sir?"

"Go." He waved to the door and went back to his writing.

Lister turned, then stopped at the door, glancing back; his eyes wandered to the home holo. A few seconds of the thin woman hugging Captain Hollister —his wife Martha—flashed. And then who ever was holding the camera jerked it away from the couple into one of those awkward shots that screamed 'home holo': Hollister and Martha were in the lower courner as the camera appeared to focus on another figure scurrying off the ramp. A figure in a fedora, dark glasses and a suspiciously lumpy trench-coat—with five thick dreads hanging down the back. The head of a black cat made a brief appearance at the collar of the man's trench coat.

Lister gaped. "What is that sir?" Lister asked, pointing at the screen.

Hollister glanced up and glared. "Why are you still here?"

"That was Earth, yeah?" He pointed to the vid screen.

Hollister glanced back and turned it off. "I said dismissed, Mister Lister."

(ooo)

Lister shoved his tray under the PC hall food dispenser and dialed up his convict number. Following a series of flatulent gurgles, a bowl and a plate clattered onto his tray. He pulled it out and slumped to the table, slipping the tray down beside Kochanski. Soup sloshed over the edge of his bowl onto the table. He tore a bun in half and sopped it up. The bun dissolved into wet sawdust. He stared at the glop congealing on his fingers, not even bothering to wipe it off on his jumpsuit.

"What's wrong, Dave?" Kochanski asked.

Lister looked at her and sighed, shrugging.

Kochanski picked at her food, separating out the plump, crusty space weevil carcasses and grimacing at the single meat chunk and teaspoon of sauce that were left. "You only told us Ace… passed on. What else happened?" She inspected the meat. Deciding it was also space weevil, she set it aside and stared at the smear of sauce on her plate.

"Yeah, buddy? What happened?" Cat asked, stripping the weevils of their legs and carapaces, and munching down the insides.

"Ace wanted to patch part of his memory into Rimmer before he died."

Cat dropped his weevil, yowling. "Man, why? That's a fate worse than corduroy! Imagine waking up and being Rimmer?"

"Knock it off, Cat." Kochanski shook her head. "What did you do?"

"I did it." Lister shrugged. "I patched his memory into Rimmer."

"Rimmer agreed to that?" Kochanski's eyes were wide.

"No... not really." Lister turned back to his food, moving it piece by piece from one side of his plate to the other.

"Then why... how?" Kochanski stared at him in disbelief. "You mean you and Ace...?"

"Erm." Lister started laying the foundation for a small weevil-chunk ziggurat on his plate.

"You did a mind patch on Rimmer without his permission?" Kochanski's voice was high enough to draw the attention of a pair of reedy convicts at the adjacent table. One giggled inanely while the other sawed at a fat weevil slowly with an opposable straw.

"Erm. Well." Lister spent a brief moment dangling over an emotional chasm of agonizing guilt. Then his natural defenses threw him a blame lifeline. "Yeah, well. He did it teh me!"

"Did what?" Kochanski asked, arms crossed over her chest.

"He swapped me mind for his. When he was a soft-light hologram." Lister sat straighter, pleased to have thought his way out of Kochanski's moral fury. "Without me permission."

"Yes, but that's different, isn't it?" Kochanski leaned on the table.

"What?" Lister deflated.

"Well, if I can remember from the course on advanced psychological algorithms I took for my Freudian discrete mathematics minor..." She paused to smile and flick her hair. "Practically basket weaving one-oh-one it was. Anyway... Part of the curriculum covered the difference between mind swap and patch algorithms. Basically a mind swap is a surjective injective function which makes it a bijection with an inverse. A mind patch, on the other hand, is not a bijective function, which means it doesn't have an inverse."

Lister stared at her, and then looked at Cat, who appeared to be frozen in time. "I didn't understand a word, did you?"

Cat grinned. "I think I can help you, buddy! I understood everything up to the word 'remember'."

Kochanski grimaced, "In my di—"

Lister held up a hand to silence her, "If whatever yeh gonneh say has the words 'my', 'dimension' and 'Dave' innit, I'm gonna find Mister Bloopy Bear and put him through a cheese grater."

"Fine." Kochanski unfolded her arms and rolled her eyes. "It means—for those thick heads among us—that a mind swap can be easily reversed. A patch can't. Also, a mind swap is contained; it's like popping a laser torus out of a drive and putting in another. A mind patch is more like..." She paused for a moment in thought. "Taking a hammer, smashing up two LTs, and then gluing the pieces back together to make one."

Lister went pale. "Not reversible. Fer real?"

"Yep." Kochanski smirked. "For real."

Lister thumped his forehead down on the table. "Smeg, smeg, smeg..."

"Well, why'd you do it, then?"

He looked up. "It seemed the right smeggin' thing to do at the time."

"What do you mean?" Kochanski asked.

"I mean, I thought it would... help him. He'd get back those last six years of his life. And Ace said..."

"Said what?"

"That it was the only way we'd have a fighting chance against..." Lister trailed off.

"Against what?" Kochanski watched him.

He couldn't meet her gaze. "He said there was this war-"

"How do you even know that was your Ace?"

Lister shook his head. "I—"

"Dave, you say you did this because you thought it would help him. Have you ever noticed how what you think is the right thing to do and what you want to do are always so similar?"

"Yeah. Because I want to do good." Lister returned to his plate, picking out a sad bit of stringy lettuce and dropping it on the floor.

"Naw," Cat leaned forward over the table. "It's because you're a meddling do-gooder. Some things ought to be left alone. Like this shirt." Cat pulled the front of his jumpsuit open to reveal a mauve pleather turtle-neck, "You can't accessorize perfection, baby! Yow!"

Kochanski smiled smugly, lifting a forkful of food, pointing it at Lister. "Exactly." She plopped it in her mouth, chewed and swallowed, still smiling. Then she stopped and looked at her plate. "I didn't-"

Cat grinned, "You did!"

Kochanski pressed the back of her hand against her lips, stood bolt upright and dashed towards the cafeteria door.

"Be careful, baby!" Cat called after her. "Weevil does not go with lavender!"

Lister watched her go, laughing a bit under his breath. Then he stopped and looked at Cat. "Do you really believe that, Cat?"

"Believe what?" Cat stripped another weevil. "That mine is the most heavenly body in the universe?"

Lister shook his head. "Never mind, Cat." He fiddled with his weevil ziggurat for a few minutes before giving it up as shite. "I'm goin' back to me cell." He started to stand.

"Sirs! How have you been?" Kryten jerked to a stop behind Lister. His metal carapace stank of fresh WD-40.

"Kryten! How are you, man?" Lister turned round, beaming. "Back to normal?"

"As much as I can be, with a bunch of space bums for friends." Kryten frowned.

Lister paused, looking at him with concern.

Kryten laughed, his chest twitching up and down unsteadily. "Irony mode off."

"Ha ha. Good one, Kryten." Lister stood and picked up his tray. "I'm not feelin' too hungry tonight, so I'm off."

"Wait, sir. Before you go, I have something to ask you."

"Make it quick, okay, Kryten? I wanna go have a lie-down." Lister wiped his face. It felt clammy.

"Yes, I will, sir. I thought you might have some insight. Today after my maintenance was finished, I was ushered into Captain Hollister's office—"

Lister stiffened, "What for?"

"Apparently, someone had used a Remote Brainwave Hologrammatic simulator and then stuffed it down the garbage chute. He requested me to examine it and tell me if I could speculate on how it had been used." Kryten sat down like an unhinged jack-in-the-box. "I looked at it and it was in an awful state. All the circuits melted."

Lister grabbed Kryten's metal arm. "What did you tell the Captain?"

"I told him that I couldn't determine much, except that it had contained psychological algorithms for someone who was obviously... what is the human term? Barmy, sir. Mad as Aunt Edna's stuffed weasel in pajamas eating toffee."

"You couldn't tell him anything more'n that?"

"Well, no sir. Not without running a diagnostic on the circuits, which was impossible." Kryten paused, pressing a square finger against his lips. "Of course it might have been used for an illegal mind patch. But I doubt anyone would be that insane—"

"Did you tell Hollister that?" Lister grabbed the counter, staring at Kryten.

"Oh no." Kryten shook his head. "I didn't think that application was relevant. Anyone who used it would have to be… suicidal. Existentially speaking, of course, sir."

"Oh." Lister let go of the breath he'd been holding. "Okay then." He stood. "I'm off, Krytes."

"So you can't enlighten me as to why Captain Hollister would request information on a burnt out brainwave simulator, sir?"

"No. Not really." Lister fidgeted, picking at his jumpsuit.

"Where's Mister Rimmer, sir?" Kryten looked around the table, then inspiration struck and he looked under it.

"He's..." Lister paused. "He's in the medical bay, Kryten."

"Not feeling himself, sir?" Kryten angled his head with a grin.

Lister stared at him. Had Kryten just made a joke? A tasteless joke? An impossibly tasteless joke for a mechanoid to make? Or did he just not know? Lister settled on the latter. "Yeah, you could say that." Lister swallowed.

"Sir, before you go... I'd just like to remind you that, since we are all not clinically insane or absurdly puny, our protective custody status, PC for short—How I love the _lingo_ in the slam—will be revoked at oh one hundred hours tomorrow."

"I know, Kryten." Lister sighed.

Kryten leaned close placing a hand on Lister's arm. "Sir, do you have any plan to prevent Mr Cat..." Kryten turned to look at Cat, who was singing, 'I'm gonna eat you little weevil' while batting at his food with his fingers, "from being- to use the human colloquialism- shit kicked?"

Lister closed his eyes. "I'll try to think of something." He pulled out of the mechanoid's grasp. "See yeh tomorrow."

(ooo)

The klaxon sounded for oh-seven-hundred. Lister lay still in his bunk, just listening to it. It sounded the call to breakfast. The guards hadn't come to escort him to the PC mess hall at oh-six. He'd been awake then, too, listening to guards gather up the crazies and the pooftahs.

Lister reached up to brush at the rust on the ceiling of his bunk, picking off flakes with his fingernails.

Ace was dead. His Rimmer was dead.

And he had to think up some way of keeping the Cat from getting killed. But he couldn't. Not right then. Not while he felt so numb.

He picked at a large chunk of iron without noticing. It split off, releasing a puff of iron dust right over Lister's face. Lister choked and sat up, his hand over his mouth.

A guard kicked at his cell grating. "Oi. Why aren't you ready to go?"

Lister slipped down from his bunk. "Not feelin' well."

The guard swung his cell door open. "Shall I take you to the mess in your skivvies? Give the other prisoners a right naughty treat?"

"Give it a mo'." Lister stepped into his dirty jumpsuit, zipping it shut. He padded towards the guard.

The guard waved his rifle butt at the boots by the bottom bunk. "You ain't thinkin' of givin' them a miss, are you?"

Lister sighed and walked back, strapping his boots on and slumping back over to the guard and out his cell.

"Right then. Where were we?" The guard pressed his rifle butt hard into Lister's back and shoved him forward. "Move it, scum."

Lister stumbled, grabbing onto the containment grating before getting his feet under him and walking down the corridor. Behind him the guard bawled out another tardy prisoner. Lister closed his eyes and tried to imagine himself back on the Starbug. Back with his Rimmer, Cat, Kryten and Kochanski. Well, maybe a Kochanski that was a little more naked and a little less of a toffer.

At the mess he saw that Kochanski and Kryten had snagged a table that was strategically located behind a concrete pylon. Kochanski was staring morosely at her weevil bacon and poached egg; Kryten was quietly sewing something beside her. As Lister walked over to them, not bothering with the food dispenser, several convicts wolf-whistled, waving lewdly at him. "Hey, Sally, commin' home wit' us?"

Lister grimaced, his shoulders tensing. Kochanski caught his eye from the table and shook her head.

"Have you thought of anything, sir? About helping the Cat?" Kryten asked, wiping down the mess table with a half-clean rag.

"No." Lister said, sitting down and staring at his hands.

"Sir. Shouldn't you eat something?" Kryten fussed. "You require nourishment thirty times a day!"

"Kryten, it's three times a day. Three." Kochanski corrected.

"Not if you're Mister Lister," Kryten sniffed.

Kochanski wrinkled her nose at him. "Well, anyway. He can have mine." She folded her arms over her chest, regarding her food with disgust.

"Ma'am, you haven't been eating properly for weeks."

"That's because I haven't had proper food for weeks," Kochanski snapped.

"Well, ma'am, if you don't mind me telling you, if you don't eat, your out bits will shrink even further!" Kryten pulled up the jumpsuit he'd been sewing. "I've already brought in the chest of your suit twice, ma'am."

Kochanski wrenched the jumpsuit out of Kryten's hands. "Say one more word and I'll shove this up your groinal socket."

"He's right, Kris." Lister rested his head on the palm of his hand.

Kochanski shielded her chest with her hands. "So what? So what if I've gotten a bit skinny?"

"Ma'am, I didn't want to tell you this, but when I was up fetching my daily oil ration, Mincing Eddie asked me who that boy was at my table. And if I could set him up on a date with you."

Kochanski grit her teeth, waving the jumper at Kryten menacingly. "I told you-"

"He was absolutely crushed when I told him you were a woman. He was so crushed he broke Stabby's wrist, ma'am."

"We're going to have to go into PC again, aren't we?" Kochanski lips thinned. "It's just not working, this."

"What are you talking about Ma'am? We were only placed in PC for one month. One month. Just enough time to allow the Canaries to forget about Cat's… accident."

"He's right," Lister interjected. "Kris. If you don't eat, you're going to get sick."

"I can't eat. I've already told Choppy that if he doesn't get the weevils out of the food—"

"Look. At some point yer gonna have to accept that the weevils aren't in the food," Lister leaned over the table, pointing at her plate, "they are the food."

"Well... I can't." Kochanski explained lamely. "Rations are terrible. _Inedible_. Everything just keeps getting worse."

"Getting worse for us." Dave nodded at the other convict's food, recognizable as _real_ food, not space weevil byproducts. "Hollister's tryin' to break our spirits."

"It's not fair." Kochanski groused.

"None of it is, Kris." Dave sighed. "Hollister throwin' us onto floor thirteen on a trumped up charge. Forced into the Con Army just to get decent treatment an' a chance to see the outside. Forced _out_ because Cat can't shoot straight."

Lister slumped, defeated. Kochanski nodded in agreement then glanced at his untouched plate. "Why aren't you eating, Dave?"

"Jus' don't feel well." Lister replied, tracing a non-existent grain in the pressed plastic table top.

"Ah. Feeling guilty." Kochanski picked at her food, a smug smile creeping up the edges of her mouth.

"I am n—"

"Sorry, non-bud!" The Cat's frightened voice carried over the mess hall rabble.

Lister looked up, then leapt to his feet.

Cat was hoisted up against the wall beside the food dispenser. Mincing Eddie's thick, heavily veined forearm was pressed into Cat's throat, the fist on his other arm knotted in Cat's jumpsuit.

Lister dashed over, tapping Eddie on the shoulder. "Eh, what's goin' on?"

Eddie turned around. "'E breathed on me kit."

"I didn't! I didn't!" Cat scrabbled against the wall. "I swear I haven't been breathing since last week!" The last word came out a squeak as Eddie leaned his weight into Cat's throat.

"Come on, Eddie," Lister pleaded. "He ain't worth your time."

"I've a grudge to settle against 'im." Eddie turned round to look at Lister.

"What for? Breathing on you?"

"Naw..." Eddie turned back to Cat. "'E's turned me love's head, 'e has!"

"You mean..."

"Yeah." Eddie started to tear up and sniffle. "Big Hairy Fat Arsed Henry no longer fancies me. 'E wants..." Eddie let go of Cat, who slid down the wall to his knees. "'E want's 'im!" Eddie regarded Cat with weepy eyes.

Lister looked over to Big Hairy Fat Arsed Henry, who waved cheerfully back. The wave resembled a small avalanche down a minor mountain in the Alps. Lister swallowed.

"He's just waitin' on 'is fight with Shiv," Eddie sobbed.

"Fighting Shiv? Why?" Lister grimaced.

"'Cause Shiv wants to kill this little slat. The winner get rights to that lil' home wrecker," Eddie nodded at Cat, dabbing at his eyes with a kerchief. "And the loser gets you!"

Lister went pale. He stumbled back a step and caught the back of a chair to steady himself. "Really?" he squeaked.

"'Less I rearrange this lil' tart's face!" Eddie gathered up Cat's jumpsuit to steady his target and raised his other arm to strike.

Cat whimpered and threw his hands up to ward off the blow.

Lister caught Eddie's raised arm, and was head-butted for his trouble. He fell back, jostling several prisoners on his way before squashing the weevil loaf of Rat Gut Willy. Rat Gut stood, his razor-thin face drawn with disgust, pulled Lister up by the lapels, and threw him down to the ground, following up with a solid kick to Lister's kidneys. Lister hissed and curled up on his side. Elbows and knees in, chin down.

Rat Gut grabbed Lister by the locks, pulling him around. He then stepped back and circled Lister, looking for an opening. Lister kept his legs between him and Rat Gut, and the convict tested him, moving back and forth to find a way around Lister's legs.

Someone else stepped on Lister's locks. Lister yelped. Rat Gut dove for him, got his knee on Lister's belly, and slammed his elbow against Lister's neck.

His vision went speckly, then everything became haloed in gray. He spat and pulled on Rat Gut's arm, trying to find room for a breath.

Just as Lister saw his grandma beckoning him into the light with a rolling pin and a pint, the pressure abruptly ended. Lister pulled himself to his hands and knees, rubbing his throat and coughing.

"Oi, you are a nancy," said a guard, catching Lister's eye as he pulled Rat Gut off Lister from behind, his billy club against the convict's throat.

Lister coughed and looked over at Cat. Kochanski was helping him to his feet. Eddie had done a number on Cat's face; it was already swollen and bleeding.

Kryten knelt beside Lister, holding a rag to his face. "Sir, I didn't mean for you to sacrifice yourself."

"It's okay, Kryten." Lister said, allowing the mechanoid to help him to his feet. "I've had worse."

"Have you, sir? I can't recall."

Lister looked at him. "I've had me arm cut off, Kryten. That was worse."

"Oh, right, sir! Of course. It was less messy, though."

Lister yanked his jumpsuit straight and shrugged off Kryten's hand, "I'm gonna go to me cell."

"But, sir!"

"Leave it, Kryten." Lister walked towards the door to the mess, stopping before he passed Kochanski and Cat. "Is he okay?" Lister asked her.

"I think so." Kochanski said. "I don't think anything's broken."

"My face! My beautiful face!" Cat wailed. "It's ruined!"

"It'll heal." Lister patted Cat on the shoulder, moving off towards the exit to the mess.

"Where are you going?" Kochanski asked, standing.

"Just back to me cell."

"That's it?"

"What can I do?" Lister shrugged. He'd never felt so helpless. Even against simulants, GELFs and Polymorphs. Stuck in a tin can with a bunch of nutters and nowhere to go. He drew his brow. Well, _violent_ nutters.

He didn't feel like dealing with any of it. Smeg, he didn't think he could deal with any of it.

(ooo)

Lister lay in his bunk, watching the rust spots, too tired to even pick at them. He closed his eyes, imagining Ace dying and trying to spit out a last word.

He pressed his fingers against his eyes, trying to make the darkness darker.

An indistinguishable length of time passed before he heard the sound of boots scraping against the pressed metal floor. The door opened. A guard barked "Get in there, you."

Lister opened his eyes and turned towards the door. It took a moment for Rimmer to come into focus.

"Hi, Listy." Rimmer said. His left arm was in a sling, and the sleeve of his jumpsuit was cut off.

"Rimmer!" Lister bolted upright, clapping his hands on the edge of the bunk. "You aren't dead!"

"Why would I be dead?" Rimmer sneered. "It was just a gunshot." Lister eyed him suspiciously as he pulled off his boots and sat down on his bunk. "I see things around here are just as top-notch as always. Service is excellent. The guards don't ever shirk on random beatings and abuse."

"So..." Lister chewed over his words slowly, "did you talk to Captain Hollister?"

"Yes, I did." Rimmer stripped off his sling and then his jumpsuit, grimacing as the fabric touched his bandaged wound.

Lister tensed visibly. "What'd you tell him?"

Rimmer squinted, his nostrils flared. "What could I tell him? I don't remember anything apart from those ridiculous bacofoil trousers."

"What? You don't remember getting shot?"

"No, Listy. Although I'm sure you had something to do with it." Rimmer glared at him.

"Huh. Nothing ,then? Not even when you pleaded for Ace to have his way with yeh?" Lister rolled back on his back, grinning.

"I did no such thing!" Rimmer stood up, nostrils flared like parachutes.

"Ah. How would you know?" Lister turned over, his face pillowed on his arm. "You don't remember."

"Because I'm not interested in men, Listy. Unlike some people I could mention, I look for more traits in a partner then just a regular pulse." Rimmer sniffed. He stepped into the common area and stripped off his wife beater.

Lister watched him. "Eh. Let me see that arm."

Rimmer glared at him. "What for? Make sure you did the trick the first time?"

Lister swung his legs over the side of the bunk, "I didn't shoot yeh, Rimmer. Come here." He waved the man over.

"Then who did? The gunman on the grassy knoll? The ghost of John Wilkes Booth?" Rimmer walked over unwillingly, lifting his wounded arm for Lister to look at.

Lister leaned in, catching Rimmer's arm and unwrapping the bandage. The wound was uneven and pitted at the edges. "Whew! Deeper then I thought. Ten stitches, eh?"

"Yes, well." Rimmer looked down.

"That's going to look way brutal when it heals." Lister re-wrapped Rimmer's bandage, nodding at the man.

"I've had worse." Rimmer muttered. A bit darkly.

"What, man? When? You mean that metal sliver you got when you re-tapped that screw hole?"

Rimmer shook his head. "Never mind."

Lister watched him, lying back in bed. "I've missed you, man."

"I've only been gone two days. Hardly enough time to get all squidgy," Rimmer snapped.

"You really don't remember anythin'?"

"Not a thing. Everything's a blank after we left the prison." Rimmer stripped out of the rest of his jump-suit, down to his boxers. Then he looked at himself in the polished metal wall panel they used as a mirror.

"Somewhat scrawny, I suspect," he muttered, tensing his muscles. "Have to work on that."

"What?" Lister leveled a stare at him.

"Nothing at all, you scoucer git. Go to sleep," Rimmer snapped, then caught sight of his hair in the mirror. "What happened here?"

"Where?" Lister half sat.

Rimmer pointed at the side of his head. "This. This thing? This ghastly side-part? Who did this to me?" He turned on his heel, nostrils flared. "Is this your idea of a practical joke, Mister Lister?"

"Yeh did it to yerself, Rimmer." Lister chuckled. "You've been wearing it like that since we met."

"Like this? It looks like it was done with a child's geometry set." Rimmer snorted. "You're daft. I wouldn't do my hair like this." He ran his fingers through his curls until the part was mussed beyond repair. Then he looked at himself, side to side, in the mirror. "Better."


	3. Cat

-1Red Dwarf Fanfic: Last Humans

Chapter 2 : Cat

Summary: Wherein Lister gets his wrist broken, Kochanski eats a space weevil and Rimmer saves the day.

Warnings: Violence, brief nudity

Beta: Roadstergal, Rack

Chapter Rating: T(PG-13)

(ooo)

Cat

(ooo)

//Ship Serial No: Red Dwarf JMC66350

//Ship's Time: 6:59-05.24-002.343

//AI-Holly-Executive: PROBABILITY OF MAKING EUROPA DROP REMOTE

//AI-Holly-Executive: HOLLISTER STILL A GIT.

The seven-oh-clock klaxon sounded. Lister jerked up, half sitting before he was fully awake.

"Smeg."

He fell back flat and buried his head under his pillow. He tried to go back to sleep, tried to ignore the klaxon. But there was something else happening–a sort of rhythmic tremor rocking the bunk.

He threw his pillow off and sat up, looking down.

Rimmer's face, eyes closed, skin slick with sweat, appeared and disappeared at the foot end of his bunk.

"What yeh doin', mate?" Lister asked, pulling his legs to his chest.

"He's doin' pull-ups, Dave." Holly replied from where he lay, nestled in a fold of blanket, by Lister's foot.

Lister caught Holly up, strapping him to his wrist. "Nice to have you back, Hol."

"Nice to be back, Dave." Holly stared out at Dave, his expression flat.

"Where am I at, Holly?" Rimmer asked, eyes still closed.

"Twenty four, Arnold."

"Right." He gritted his teeth and forced himself up one more time, body shaking with the effort. Then he let go and stepped back, breathing hard. "Twenty-five it is."

"What are yeh doing, man?" Lister asked.

"Exercising." Rimmer replied, folding backwards onto the floor. He began sit-ups.

Holly counted in time to Rimmer's reps.

"Yeh've never exercised like this." Lister protested. "I mean you kept yerself fit, yeah. But yeh did ponce things like…" He grimaced, thinking. "Like bicycling and jogging and them things where you wave your arms in the air and jump—"

"Calisthenics?" Holly supplied.

"Yeah, them Cally-esthics. And racquet ball." Lister stuck his tongue out in disgust. "Toff crap you thought would help yeh network and get up the ziggurat lickety-split, like."

"I… did…do…" Rimmer countered in between sit ups and breaths.

"He did, Dave. He's been up since five thirty. Did a half hour of runnin' in place, then fifteen minutes of sprawls, another fifteen of this crawlin' about business that I didn't quite follow the point of—"

Rimmer stopped, arms over his knees. "Leopard crawl, Holly." He sprang back, resuming his sit ups.

"Right." Holly rolled his eyes. "I think he's gone mad, meself." He paused, brow creased. "Well, mad-er. Em. More insane."

"I get yeh, Hol." Lister lay down on his stomach, watching as Rimmer pulled himself over onto his chest, pausing for a breath.

"What's my count?" he demanded from the floor.

"Seventy-five, Arnold."

Rimmer grimaced, "What a flabby git." He propped himself on his arms and started push-ups.

"Eh! Eh!" Lister hopped down from his bunk. "You're gonna hurt your arm doin' that!"

Rimmer ignored him. Lister watched as the man blazed through a couple dozen knuckle sit ups, then upped the ante by putting his injured arm behind his back and continuing one-handed.

Lister chewed one of his plaits. Rimmer's muscles strained, his veins popping, as sweat slid down his skin. Lister had never seen him push himself that hard, and watching the smeghead, his face flushed red, mouth open and moist, his whole body heaving like some great animal—

"Stop staring at me, Listy." Rimmer had stopped. He looked up.

"I ain't starin'!" Lister protested, looking away before Rimmer could meet his gaze. "I'm jus' wonderin' why you're… acting so..." He trailed off, blushing.

Rimmer stood up, "I should be asking you why you're acting like a complete wolly-woofter." He walked over to the sink, splashed water on his face and picked up his tooth brush. "But then, I suppose you always did."

"Smeg off," Lister replied, half-heartedly, and stepped over to where he'd left his jumper on the floor. He picked it up, sniffing the pits to see if it was too rank to wear.

Rimmer, mouth full of toothpaste, leveled a look of disgust at him. He turned back to the sink to spit it out. "Listy, you're going to be the first man ever to get blood-poisoning from his own undershirt."

Lister screwed his features up at Rimmer's back, pulling his locks into a twist. "What do you care?"

Rimmer stepped over to the dressing closet. He pulled out a jumper on a hanger, its sides carefully pleated, and inspected it for creases. Satisfied, he pulled it off and stepped into it. "I don't care. Except that I'm sure they'd just leave your carcass here." Rimmer sniffed. "After a few days, I'm sure even a decomposing corpse should smell worse then you do now." He knelt to strap on his boots.

"Ha ha," Lister snarked, slipping into his jumper. It'd been a little scratty, but passable.

The guard slammed the butt of his rifle into their cell grating. Lister jumped. Rimmer half-crouched.

"You two do like to dawdle, don't you?" the guard sneered.

(ooo)

Lister slid his breakfast tray down beside Kochanski. She didn't look up, her hair shielding her face.

"Kris, just bolt it," Lister advised, sitting down. "Don't even taste it."

"I tried that. I just got back from the washroom." She pulled back her hair and swallowed.

"Look. It's not tha' bad, really." Lister smiled, picking up his own roast weevil. "Tastes a bit like king prawn, it does." He stripped off the chitin and took a small bite, nodding. "A little more sandpapery texture… and definitely slightly…" He smacked his lips. Kochanski watched him in horror. "Definitely more tart. Cheeky."

"Gah," she said, turning back to her own plate.

"Just eat it, you daft bird." Rimmer slammed his tray down on the other side of Kochanski.

She glared at him.

He picked up his weevil, shoving it towards Kochanski. "By the looks of things," he glanced pointedly at her chest, "I'd be careful of floor gratings if I were you." He brought the weevil back in front of himself, lifting his chin and watching it down his nose. "Probably some cunning escape plan." He stripped the weevil and took a good chomp. "Going to fold in half and slip yourself under the prison door?"

"I… never…" Kochanski sputtered, drawing herself up. "You…"

"No one will blame you for not being able to hack it in the _men's_ mess hall." Rimmer grinned.

"You… you—" Kochanski picked up her weevil and took a bite out of it, chitin exoskeleton and all. She chewed hard, the weevil crunched. She stopped, her eyes tearing.

Rimmer smarmed, chewing his own weevil with relish.

She chewed again. And again. And swallowed. Coughing and gagging a bit, Kochanski picked up her cup of water and took a gulp. "You're a bastard." She gasped.

"Yes I am." Rimmer sipped his own water. "But a bastard that can handle my weevil."

"And to think—" Kochanski leaned against the table, her head bowed, holding her cup of water like it was a life-line. "To think I defended you against _him_." She glared at Lister.

"Defended?" Rimmer glanced at Lister.

Kochanski took another bit of weevil, anger and nausea fighting over her features. "Yes. He—"

Lister poked her in the side. "Maybe we should let that _be_ for now, Kris." Lister stared at her. "Might not be a good idea to disturb him when he's in a state."

She rolled her eyes and shook her head. "Whatever."

Rimmer snorted. "Defended against _what_?"

"Sirs!" Kryten interjected brightly. "And… Ma'am." He added, less brightly, inclining his head towards Kochanski. She grimaced back at him.

"Kryten, how are you!" Lister slapped the mechanoid on the back with forced chumminess, ignoring Rimmer's glare.

"Fine, Sir." Kryten sat down. "But I should tell you… scuttlebutt has it that Shiv and Big Hairy Fat-Arsed Henry are going to fight tonight. I was wondering if you'd thought about how you're going to prevent yourself and Cat being… what's an appropriate human expression?" Kryten paused in thought. "Tranny'd up and rogered senseless?"

"Kryten, that isn't an _expression_. That's literally goin' to happen to us." Lister thumped his forehead down on the table top. "Smeg. I'd forgot."

"Sir, if you forgot _that,_ you must have a mind like a sieve that's been used as target practice by an entire squadron of heavy artillery. And I don't mean a squadron armed with those little anti-personnel shells that just vaporize an area safely contained within the average bog; I mean the really big ones, often whimsically coined Big Bertha, that have been known to flambé entire city blocks."

"Are you done?" Lister asked, sitting up straight. "I mean, have you any more of this extended… sim… simil…"

"Simile, Sir?"

"Yeah, that. Have yeh any more to lay on me? I mean, since the prospect of becoming a human sasquatch's luvvy-bumpkins isn't enough of a pain."

"I'm quite done, sir." Kryten started to rub at a spot on the table with his rag. Under his breath he added, "As are you, Sir."

Lister slammed his palm down on the table, pointing at the mechanoid. "I heard that!"

"Listy, Listy, Listy…" Rimmer smiled at the scouser. "Why didn't you tell me you were in a bit of a pickle?"

"Look, if I needed advice in fleein' and hidin' behind large objects, I would ask you, Rimmer. But I don't, as," Lister waved his hands around the cafeteria, "this is a prison. Nowhere to flee, and no large objects to hide behind." He bit his thumb. "Except the one tha' wants to use me arse as a trampoline."

"Maybe you can go to the guards and tell them what's happening, and they'll put you back into PC?" Kochanski offered.

"Ma'am, I'm afraid I've heard another rumor - that Big Hairy Fat-Arsed Henry is planning to sell Mr. Lister's…" Kryten brought the rag to his quivering lips, "Favors _to_ the guards for an extra ration of ciggies every Wednesday."

"Are yeh enjoying this?" Lister turned to Kryten, his fists balled.

"Not at all, Sir. I'm only trying to help."

"Right. Then shut up."

"If only we could find you some sort of weapon." Kochanski chewed her nail, pondering.

"I should think the weapon would be obvious." A slow, scummy grin crept over Rimmer's features. "Lister's underpants. That unholy stink should be enough to knock out anyone."

"Yeh shut up too, Rimmer." Lister looked around, glaring at Rimmer and Kryten. Then he noticed something amiss, "Where's Cat?"

"Cat?" Kochanski asked. "Oh! I haven't seen him since yesterday." Worry pinched her features. "Do you think—?"

Lister caught her gaze, "Kris. Take Kryten and try to find Cat. Let's hope 'e's not hurt." Lister grabbed Rimmer's arm, pulling on it. "Come on Rimmer."

"What do you want?" Rimmer refused to move, picking up what was left of his weevil. "I'm not about to help either you or that wretched, yowling feline."

"Get up, smeg-head. Or I'll burn yer secret cache of Richie Dixon's Tango Treats."

"Do you think I give a smegging crap?" Rimmer asked, fishing out the last hunk of meat from the weevil shell.

Lister, Kochanski and Kryten stopped to stare, all struck dumb. Lister recovered first.

"They're yer prized collection, Rimmer."

"What?" Rimmer blinked at him, nostrils flared.

"Richie_Dixon_…" Lister rolled his hands. "Your favorite musician. I'm gonneh burn yer copies of yer favorite musician's music. The _last_ copies in the universe."

Rimmer groaned and stood. "Fine. I'll go with you - just stop blathering on about nonsense."

Lister smiled at him. "That's the spirit," he said, and chucked the man on the shoulder.

"Where are you going, Dave?" Kochanski caught his arm.

"I'm goin' to send a message to me little mechanical friends."

"But Ackerman put that damper on your pipe, you can't get hold of the skutters—"

"I've an idea." Lister grinned, pecking Kochanski on the cheek. "Go find Cat."

(ooo)

"Jus' a lil' higher, Rimmer." Lister held Holly's watch out in front of him. He was seated precariously on Rimmer's shoulders. The taller man crouched below him, hands braced on his knees in the middle of the empty rec gym floor.

"I can't go any higher, you fat git." Rimmer spat, his arms and knees shaking.

Lister rocked upwards, trying to reach as far as he could into the empty air.

"If I knew this plan'd end up with my head jammed half way up your backside, I'd have never—"

"Got it, Dave!" Holly called.

"Yeah!" Lister levered his boot against the small of Rimmer's back, jumping off and landing with just a bit of a stumble. "Did you send the message?"

Rimmer caught the small of his back. Stooped over and grimacing, he growled, "Scrotty jackass."

"Bob says he'll try to help you, soon as he has a mo'." Holly looked out at Dave, his face expressionless.

"Did you tell 'im it was urgent?"

"I did, Dave, but he's dealing with a few of his own issues at the moment."

"Issues? What kind of issues can a _skutter_ have?" Rimmer sneered, still rubbing is back.

"Us electronic life forms have lives, just like everyone else, Arnold."

"No, we _don't_ have lives. That's why we do all the things _humans_ don't want to or don't want to loose their lives to do," Rimmer snapped. "We're second tier, don't forget that, Holly."

Rimmer brushed past Lister who stared at him, open mouthed. "What are yeh on about Rimmer?"

"What?" Rimmer stopped to look at Lister.

"Yeh just said you were electronic."

"I did _not_." The taller man folded his arms over his chest and glared.

"You implied it, Arnold." Holly corrected.

"I—" Rimmer started, then confusion swept out anger on his features. He swallowed, his hand pressed to his head. "I don't feel well…" He trailed off, his hand out and fumbling for something to hold onto. Lister moved to help him, catching the man around the chest. Rimmer fell heavily against Lister. "Get off me, you woolly goit," he breathed into Lister's neck.

Lister knelt, easing Rimmer to the ground. "Wha' happened?"

"Well, I don't have much input to go on, but I'm guessing that he's not taking well to having his mind completely shattered."

"Rimmer!" Lister slapped the other man's face. "Wake up, mate!"

"Hhn." Rimmer moaned, lifting his head to look at Lister. "What are you doing on top, Davey-boy?"

Lister sat back on his haunches and beamed. "Yeh had me scared, there."

Rimmer pulled himself up and brought his knees to his chest. "Did I?" He rubbed the back of his neck. "I'm not feeling myself, really."

"I'm sorry." Lister muttered. "I—"

"Oi! What are you doin' down there?" a guard called down from the gantry above the gym floor.

"We just took a wrong turn, is all." Lister turned, yelling back.

"Shut up and get out. Convicts ain't supposed to be in here between oh-thirteen and oh-seventeen."

"Can you get up?" Lister asked, catching Rimmer under the armpits.

"Stop touching me, you filthy, hair-ball headed scouser." Rimmer slapped Lister's hands away and stumbled to his feet.

Together they walked towards the stairs, the guard tapping his night stick on the gantry above them.

"What's the time, Hol?" Lister whispered, raising Holly's watch to his face.

"'What time is it,' 'Send a message to Bob,' 'Keep track of me appointments'. I'm a computer with an IQ of 6000, I'm not a palm pilot."

"Yeah, but you've nothin' better to do." Lister grinned.

Holly sighed. "I could be cookin' up a plan to get us out."

"But you aren't. So, what's the time Hol?"

"Half past five o'clock in the afternoon."

"I missed dinner because of this nonsense." Rimmer groused. "Finding a place where the signal was strong enough."

"Time for us to meet up with Kris and Kryten." And Cat. Lister grimaced.

(ooo)

Lister entered the mess hall with Rimmer in time to watch Kryten and Kochanski—a bruised Cat pressed tightly between them—waddle up to the food dispenser. Cat placed his tray under the nozzle, punching in his convict code. Kochanski and the mechanoid reformed themselves as a wall behind him, watching the cafeteria for signs of danger.

Rimmer sidled up to them, a sneer on his lips. "Is this how you're going to keep Cat safe from Eddie? Acting like two halves of a lunatic sandwich?"

Kochanski glared at him, "Do you have a better idea?"

"I—"

"What are you all doin' gettin' in the way of me thrashin' that lil' slat?"

Rimmer turned around, looking _up_ at Eddie. "Ah…" He said, leaning back slightly. "I'm not in your way am I? Yes? Then let me get out…"

Lister stepped up, catching Rimmer by the arm to stop him from weaseling off. "I'm afraid yer gonneh have to get through us if yeh want Cat."

Eddie grinned, cracking his knuckles. "Wit' pleasure."

"Wait! What Lister means by 'us' is him…" Rimmer nodded at Lister, "him," Kryten, "and, possibly, her." He finished by jerking his head at Kochanski. "Certainly not me!"

"Shut up Rimmer." Kochanski pushed past him, standing in front of Eddie. "Look here, Mincing…" she cleared her throat, "Eddie. Don't you ever get tired of being a lazy stereotype? Don't you ever wonder if there is anything more to life then being a brutal thug on the fringe of society? Don't you ever—"

Eddie smacked her, sending her spinning into a table. "No."

"Ma'am!" Kryten jerked into a crouch beside Kochanski, helping her out of the table wreckage. "Are you all right?" He fretted, wiping sauce from her face and neck. She submitted to his ministrations meekly.

Lister watched Kryten. He rounded on Eddie. "You bastard!" He took a swing, getting his whole weight behind a haymaker to take the man down quickly. Eddie sidestepped it and caught Lister's arm, twisting the wrist until Lister heard a snap, followed by a blinding flash of pain. He fell, retching, to the ground.

Distantly he heard Rimmer speak, "Now, Eddie. May I call you Eddie? I don't think you understand the situation—I'm not—"

After that, Lister heard a crack, and the sound of a body hitting the ground heavily beside him. Lister turned, barely able to see through the haze of tears.

Eddie. It was Eddie.

The man was screaming—"'E broke my nothe! 'E broke my nothe!"

Lister looked up. Rimmer was straddling Eddie, looking at his blood-streaked hands like they were someone else's. His lips worked helplessly, no sounds coming out. He met Lister's gaze for an instant. Then his eyes rolled into his head and he collapsed sideways, joining Lister and Eddie on the ground.

Something_heavy_ pounced on Lister. He moaned.

Cat leaned into his face, grinning. "I'm the last one standing, buddy! I win!"

(ooo)

"Where am I?" Rimmer spoke.

Lister glanced over. "Convic' hozzy."

"I feel like my brain's been wrapped in cotton." He looked at his bandaged hands. "How?"

"You ripped your knuckles open on Eddie's face," Lister whispered, shrugging his shoulder at the convict in question. A nurse was tending Eddie, tilting his head back as she examined his nose.

Rimmer pulled himself up, eyeing the IV in his arm. "Oh yes. I remember that." He sat on the bed, cross-legged. "What happened to you?"

"Eddie broke my wrist." Lister showed Rimmer his cast. "They've given me these luvly drugs." Lister giggled.

"Ehm."

"Ah, Mr. Rimmer. You're awake." A doctor sidled over, curt and rather generic in his plain white lab smock. "I am Doctor Valley. I'm in rotation at the convict ward this week. Yes?"

"Doctor, I'm fine. So if you'd just…" Rimmer waved to the IV.

"Ah, no." The doctor lifted a small psyscan out of his pocket and clicked it on. "I'm afraid you're going for a holoscan in the main medical bay."

"What? There's nothing wrong with me!"

The doctor tilted Rimmer's head back and pressed his right eyelid open, shining the psyscan into his eye. He followed up with the left. "Not as such. Yes? Your symptoms and your test results indicate some sort of tampering."

Lister slowly shrank under his thin, hospital issue blanket.

"Could you step off the bed for a moment? Yes?" Valley stepped back, waving Rimmer to stand.

Rimmer followed his instructions, but stumbled as he stood, catching the bed railing for balance.

"Feeling dizzy are you? Disorientated. Yes? I want you to stand on one foot and touch both index fingers to your nose."

Rimmer grimaced but complied, balancing precariously on one foot and moving his fingers to his nose.

"Slower." Doctor Valley backed away.

Rimmer closed his eyes for a moment and promptly lost his balance. He spent a few minutes tipping over, then caught himself and resumed following Valley's instructions.

Lister watched the doctor back up until he bumped into a tray. "Good, good," he said, watching Rimmer touch his nose. The doctor picked up a rubber ear syringe behind his back. "Excellent." In one smooth movement the doctor threw the ear syringe at Rimmer.

Rimmer ducked in a flurry of displaced blankets.

Lister blinked, impressed. He rolled his head over to look at the bottom far wall, searching for the rubber syringe. It wasn't there. He rolled his head back.

Rimmer had caught it.

"What the smeg?" Rimmer looked at the ear syringe in his hand. He threw it down, lips curled in fury. "What kind of quack are you? I'll write you up for malpractice, squire!"

"A simple test of reflex." The doctor replied. "Yes. I think we'll find someone's been having a little fun with your cerebellum." He picked up a touch-pen and started writing on his electronic clipboard.

"What things?" Rimmer glared at him.

"Your hormonal signature is off the charts, yes? Compared to _your_ former norms, at least."

"And… so?"

"A little context? Yes? I find there are two types of people in the world—"

"Those that assault others with random medical implements and those that don't?" Rimmer crossed his hands over his chest.

"Those two types are people who are prone to… addictions of the parasympathetic response, and those who are prone to addictions of the sympathetic. Your normal hormonal signature, the composite of readings taken over your fifteen years' of service at JMC, suggests you're more of a parasympathetic individual. Yes? Excess cortisone, and all that. _Now_ your hormonal signature resembles a sympathetic individual. Excess adrenaline."

"And… that means?"

"Let's move this into the concrete, shall we? Yes?" The doctor fluttered his hand from shoulder height to hip height. "Your signature has started to resemble Lieutenant Commander Todhunter's, to use an example. Now, _you_ were the type of person who was likely to enjoy stamp collecting and Christian Rock as entertainment. Yes? Todhunter preferred jumping out of aeroplanes and copious casual sex."

Rimmer blinked. "But I feel… normal. Aside from the dizziness, of course."

"Well… there's no reason why you wouldn't… feel normal. I mean, this isn't an illness, yes? Or anything… that…" The doctor trailed off. "It'll be up to you, how you want this issue resolved, ultimately. Would you like to return to being a… well… I mean, to use the laymen's term… a git?"

"A git," Rimmer repeated. "Is that what it states in my_medical records_?"

The doctor looked at his clipboard, used his touch pen to scroll down, then flipped a few records. "Yes." He nodded vigorously. "The files are rather consistent on that point."

Lister couldn't help a little giggle at that.

Valley turned to look at him. "Nurse? Isn't _he_ ready for discharge?"

The nurse put down the bandage she'd been about to apply to one of Eddie's lacerations. "Oh no, Doctor. He'll have to stay over night for observation."

Doctor Valley rolled his hands at Lister. "Please be quiet while I am consulting with Mr. Rimmer, yes?"

"Oh, right sir." Lister squeezed his lips tight against another chuckle.

"Now. It is up to you how the… treatment will proceed. But I'm getting ahead of myself. We don't even know what we're dealing with until we've done a holoscan."

"But you've got some idea, haven't you?" Rimmer sat back on the bed. "Some educated guess?"

"Yes. I believe you've undergone an illegal mind patch."

"A what?"

"A mind patch. You see, when someone places a hologrammatic personality and—"

"I know what it is."

"You do? Yes? Well, we'll find out for sure after the scan. Of course,_then_ there is the issue of charges."

Rimmer balled his fists. "Charges?"

"It's illegal, after all, yes?" Valley busied himself jotting notes on his clip board. "So when did you become dissatisfied with your life as… a git?"

"You think I did it." Rimmer stood and glared down at the doctor. "You think I did it to myself! I didn't! You throw things at me, unprovoked—and now you accuse me of being insane enough to do a mind patch on myself because I hate being a git." Rimmer's nostrils quivered. "Which I don't, because I'm not!"

"Mr. Rimmer! Please! Remember the inhibitions you used to have and come down! Yes?"

"Yes, my arse, doctor! I didn't do it!" Rimmer stepped onto the bed and kicked a tray of medical instruments at Valley. The man ducked, shielding himself with his clip board. The instruments clattered over the floor.

The nurse turned to face Rimmer. "Mr. Rimmer. We do not tolerate staff abuse. If you don't get down, I'll call for the orderlies."

"Go ahead. I'm not going to _get_ holoscanned, and I'm not going to stay here any longer. As a prisoner I demand the right to be imprisoned. In my cell. Alone." Rimmer stood over them all, hands on his hips.

From his angle, Lister got a very good view of Rimmer's arse, poking out of the open back of the hospital gown. As he half-cowered under his blanket, he pondered how a white boy from Io managed to be two-thirds arse. He clamped his hand over another giggle.

The Nurse made good on her threat, slipping out to the door to call in reinforcements—two bristly men in green smocks.

Lister tried to make himself as small as possible as the two started wrestling Rimmer down. Rimmer had gotten hold of the curtain bar. One orderly caught hold of Rimmer's hips and pulled until Rimmer was nearly parallel with the floor. The second tried to climb on the bed to wrench open Rimmer's fingers. The bed skidded sideways. One orderly fell onto his forearms and knees, swearing at the pain; the other stumbled backwards into Doctor Valley.

Rimmer swung and twisted, held up by his arms and nothing else. "I didn't do it! I didn't!"

The Doctor thrust a pulse-hypo at one of the Orderlies. The man grabbed it, nodded at the other orderly. One bear-hugged Rimmer's dangling chest, while the other jabbed it into Rimmer's IV.

A few more spasms and Rimmer collapsed into the orderly's arms.

Lister peeked out from under his blanket.

Doctor Valley wiped his face with a kerchief. "Strap him in to a gurney, yes? I'm taking him in to the main bay."

"What about our other patients, Doctor?"

Valley looked at Eddie, who looked back, shaken by the whole event.

"He can go. Yes. Take him, too." He waved at Lister. "Get them all out of the bay. I want no one here when I return. Yes?"

"But, sir—" the nurse protested.

"Stick a portable psyscan on the skuzzy one. Get them out."

"And if there's an emergency?"

Doctor Valley didn't answer. Instead he turned to the orderlies and the unconscious Rimmer strapped to a stretcher. "Let's go, yes?"

Lister watched Rimmer go. Suddenly feeling like smeg. Smeg that had found out its uncle was also its father and brother and, possibly, its grandfather too, but _those_ tests hadn't come back from the lab yet.


	4. Algorithm

Red Dwarf Fanfic: Last Humans

Chapter 3 : Algorithm

Summary: Wherein Ackerman is impressed, Lister is horny and Rimmer is promoted.

Warnings: Slash implications

Beta: Roadstergal, Rack

Chapter Rating: Teen(PG-13)

(ooo)

Algorithm

(ooo)

//Ship Serial No: Red Dwarf JMC66350

//Ship's Time: 6:59-05.25-002.343

//AI-Holly-Executive: PROBABILITY OF MAKING EUROPA DROP STILL REMOTE

//AI-Holly-Executive: PICKING UP NEW SIGNAL FROM STARTRANSIT HUB™

//AI-Holly-Executive: STARTRANSIT HUB™ A GIT

Lister was up by the time the klaxon sounded.

He was sitting cross-legged on the floor of his cell, staring at Rimmer's empty bunk. He wasn't thinking so much as feeling: a fiesta mix of guilt, anger, and anxiety. Olé!

Smeg.

He'd worried his lip until he couldn't find any more skin to bite. Then he'd gone on to his cuticles, which were now a mass of bleeding hang-nails. After that he'd picked at the loose bits of thread in the cast on his wrist. Finally he'd settled on his plaits, and was currently trying to cough up a matted mass of nappy hair he'd accidentally swallowed.

Smeg.

The guard banged his cell grating, "I don't know why I bother with you. Every mornin' it's the same."

"Then don't," Lister retorted, then added, "Bother," to clarify things.

"You wannah miss mornin'-sum?"

"I don't care if I miss anythin'. I don't wanna move."

"Suit yerself. Yer on a medical anyway." The guard moved down the row, slamming on the next convict's cell.

Lister curled up on his side, still watching Rimmer's bunk. The thoughts spilled out, as if the guard had reminded him how to think.

_What've I done?_ snuck up fast, then,_What'll I do?_ came round the bend. _What was I thinkin'?_ slipped past _It wasn't my fault!, _scoring a goal.

Lister settled against the floor, looking under Rimmer's bed. Socks—wadded up into balls—lay under the bunk. _So that's where me socks went_, Lister thought before pulling himself to his knees and crawling over to fish them out.

He swept a few up, crunching them between his fingers and thinking about Rimmer. He'd hate that, knowing a few of Lister's socks had gotten through his anal retentive defense shields and festered there, uninvited, under his bunk.

Lister brought a sock to his lips and chewed it, thoughtfully.

After Rimmer had gotten his hard light drive, Lister had given a thought to cleaning, too. Something about the man being really _there_ had made Lister want to clean up a bit. Get things a little more square.

Holograms, soft light ones anyway, couldn't really touch or taste or smell. So he'd cleaned like he was alone. For the most part.

Then Rimmer had gotten that hard light drive, and some time after, they'd hiked on some empty planetoid, the sun baking down on them. Lister had noticed that Rimmer was sweating. _Responding_ to the heat.

Lister closed his eyes. He could see it; Rimmer had stopped at the top, and Lister had stopped behind the hologram, too close for Rimmer's taste, Lister knew. Exercise buzz always bullocksed up Lister's sense of personal space. Rimmer had panted and said, "Jacket off." His jacket had vaporized, and he'd stood, sweat soaking his undershirt, looking down into the valley beyond the mountain they'd just climbed. He'd gone silent then. Just standing in the light.

Lister had watched him, watched the sweat slip down his skin, slicking his shirt to his pecs and arms. And Lister had thought, for the first,_this is someone livin', some livin' animal, like me._

He had gasped and choked a bit, the horniness hit him so strong and fast.

Even when Rimmer had been alive, he hadn't seemed fully human. Or maybe, not fully animal. Not till that moment.

Rimmer had turned and stepped back, putting a proper distance between them. The motion stirred up a puff of wind that smelled pine-like and staticy, but did not stink of sweat. The man didn't smell. Didn't smell at all.

The horniness left Lister as quickly as it'd hit.

He'd started to clean up after that a bit, just to be nice. Because, well, the hologram was really _there_. Not _not_ dead, but, like,_alive_.

Lister stood, throwing the socks in his laundry bin.

"Doing a bit of spring cleaning, Listy?"

Lister turned. The door slid open and Rimmer stepped inside. "Hi. Eh." Lister waved and went silent. After a moment he thought of something to ask. "How was the test?"

Rimmer stripped off his jump suit to the waist and lay down on his bunk, rubbing his eyes. "If you were hoping to gloat, I've bad news. I'm not going to be charged with anything."

"Wha' happened?"

"Inconclusive. They are almost certain I had a patch job, but they couldn't find anyone whose algorithms matched those they decomposed out of my scan. Aside from me." Rimmer laughed. "So no one on this ship can_press_ charges. No mind-right infringement."

"What's gonna happen now?"

"Now? Nothing. Like the good doctor said," Rimmer shrugged, "It's my choice if I want to be treated or not."

"Are yeh?"

"Listy…" Rimmer propped himself up on his elbow. "I don't want to be_fucked_ around with again."

"But… yer different now. Yeh don't care about Richie Dixon, yeh say what's on your mind even to Kris, yeh get into fights… and _win_." Lister hesitated. "Wha' am I saying? Yer right, stay the way you are."

Rimmer looked up at the bunk above him. "I do _wonder_ how this happened in the first place." He squinted. "I remember Ace. I remember waking up in medical bay. Nothing in-between. I didn't even know there _was_ an in-between till Hollister questioned me. Thought Henry must've punched me, and I caught my arm on something falling down." He rolled over onto his side, pinning Lister with a glare. "Why don't _you_ tell me what happened?"

Lister glanced down at his feet. "Sure. Yeah." He dug his toe into the steel floor. "I'll tell you, man."

Rimmer swung his legs out of the bunk, sitting on the edge. "Go on, Listy."

Lister glanced up at him. It felt like Rimmer was sharpening a mental knife on a mental rasp. He ploughed on anyway. "Well, Ace—well, _your_ hologram, really— was tellin' me how…"

"How what? How to create a flight suit out of home insulation?"

"Naw. He told me about this war. He told _us_. He said he had knowledge he didn't have time to explain." Listy paused, thinking. "And experience he couldn't explain."

"And then what…?"

"He died."

Rimmer pressed his finger to his lips, affecting an exaggerated thinking pose. "I imagine that must be the abridged version. It's missing a lot of minor detail. How I got shot, for instance."

Lister couldn't meet his gaze. "Ace shot you."

"Ah. Now we get to the good stuff. So." He clapped his hands together. "Why did Ace shoot me?"

Lister caught a lock, bringing it forward to chew on.

"Come on, Listy. It _can't_ be _that_ bad. What's a bit of gunfire between friends?"

"He… he asked you to do a mind patch." Lister forced the words out.

"And I refused? So he shot me?" Rimmer rubbed his head. "I think I can guess the rest from here. Your _special_ friend decided I didn't deserve the right to dominion over my own mind. So he decided for me to do the mind patch. When I refused he shot me and did it anyway."

Lister went silent. "No."

"No? What? Listy, are you still—"

"I did it." Lister mumbled, interrupting.

"What?"

"_I_did it!" Lister pointed both thumbs towards himself. "I did the mind patch! Ace was dead before he could set it up. I did it. Me."

"You?" Rimmer lapsed into silence, staring at Lister.

Lister nodded, turning his head back and forth, trying to find a position that made taking Rimmer's angry stare comfortable. None worked.

Rimmer stood, advancing step by step. "You did this? To me?"

Lister swallowed, his hands up, palms facing Rimmer. "Ace said—"

"You used me as a guinea-pig, Lister." Rimmer's face was blank, but tension rippled through the muscles of his arms and neck. "You used me. You used my mind. You didn't _think_." He touched his forehead. "You have a habit of doing that, you know." His voice was calm. "Not thinking things through, getting second opinions. _Sane_ opinions."

"Yeah, I know, and then it all backfires." Lister watched Rimmer. The man was too calm by far.

Rimmer's cheek twitched. "You're selfish, you know that, Listy? You don't see beyond your own fat orbit."

"Ace said we might die if we—"

Rimmer sprang at him, catching the lapels of his prison smock and slamming him up against the wall. Lister grunted, his head hitting the metal paneling, sending a wave of grey over his vision. His broken wrist felt like it was on fire.

"You bastard." Rimmer's voice was level.

"Rimmah, let me go." Lister's voice was reedy. He'd never been _afraid_ of Rimmer before. But that eerie, calm voice, belied by the tension that spat off the man like water off of a greased griddle, left him terrified.

"I'm going to kill you." Rimmer said, his voice matter-of-fact.

"No, Rimmer. I'm sorry. I thought—"

"You were doing the right thing?"

"I didn't hafta confess!" Lister protested. "Yeh thought it was Ace!"

Rimmer let go of Lister's lapel, balling his hand into a fist. Lister started to flinch and wrestle his way out of Rimmer's grip, then stopped himself, "Look, if this is what you need, man." He stood still, closing his eyes.

He felt Rimmer let his jump-suit go. He tensed his shoulders, trying to protect himself. No blow came. He opened an eye.

Rimmer had walked off, standing with his back to Lister. "I'm not going to speak to you for a very, very long time." He bowed his head. Then turned and left the cell.

(ooo)

"Why isn't Mister Rimmer sitting with us?" Kryten asked at evening meal. Kochanski glanced over at the empty table on the other side of the hall. Empty except for Rimmer. He had his back to them.

"We had a bit of a fallin' out, me an' him." Lister stirred his weevil stew. He was bowed over it, one hand resting against the back of his head.

"He found out what you did, did he?" Kochanski sipped her own stew.

Lister nodded.

"Am I missing something, Ma'am?" Kryten leaned towards Kochanski. "Is there something happening between Mister Lister and Mister Rimmer?"

Kochanski nodded around a mouthful. "Lister forced a mind patch on Rimmer."

Kryten turned to stare at Lister. "Mister Lister, you didn't!"

"He did!" Cat grinned. "And why do you care? You hate alpha-geti head as much as anyone else."

Kryten sputtered. "Sir, I do not _hate_ Mister Rimmer. I may find him loathsome and detestable, but I assure you _hate_ does not come into it."

"I don't get why you're all moping around over this." Cat crossed his arms over his chest, pouting. "So what if Lister scrambled his brains? Anything is an improvement over what he _was_. The personality equivalent of fatal bowel blockage."

"Look. It isn't the man. It's the principle." Lister looked up at Cat. "I shouldn't have done it, even if it was Rimmer."

"Quite right, Sir. If we all went around illegally altering the personalities of people we found unpalatable, well, where would we be?" Kryten bent forward. "I'll tell you where we'd be, in prison."

"Kryten. We _are_ in prison." Kochanski glanced, pointedly, around her.

"A worse one, Miss Kochanski. A prison of the _mind_. A prison where we'd have to constantly monitor all our irritating idiosyncrasies to avoid upsetting everyone else. Mister Lister would have to maintain a basic level of hygiene, the shock of which might just kill him. The Cat would have to cease being so mind-numbingly self-absorbed he lists his full length mirror as 'next of kin'. And you," Kryten flopped back in his chair, looking at Kochanski. "Well, where do I begin, Ma'am?"

"What about you?" Kochanski frowned. "Would you have to stop being such a jealous _fuss-budget_?" She propped her hands on her hips, nostrils flared.

Kryten's molded jelly-plast head jerked into a caricature of offense.

Lister shoved his hand between them. "Knock it off. Both of yeh. Yer not helpin'."

They lapsed into silence, Kochanski glaring at Kryten, Kryten busying himself with cleaning the table-top.

"It wath 'im!"

Lister glanced up. Eddie was pointing across the mess at Rimmer, Henry at his side. Without another word Henry left Eddie's side, weaving through the mess hall towards Rimmer.

Lister stood. Kochanski caught his arm. "Henry will kill you."

"I can't just leave him." Lister turned back.

Kochanski kept her grip on his arm, but stood with him.

"You Rimmer?" Henry slammed his hands down on Rimmer's table.

Rimmer started and looked up from his meal. "Eh… yes?"

"Yer gonna die." Henry reached over the table to grab Rimmer.

Rimmer jumped back, tipped his chair over and sent it clattering across the floor. "Now wait a moment—" He waved his hands in front of himself, stepping back.

Henry shoved the table. It slammed into another table of convicts, slopping their dinners down the front of their smocks. They glanced up nearly as one, looking ready to rip into the person who'd ruined supper. Then they saw Henry.

"I don't think I'm the one you want…" Rimmer kept backing up as Henry advanced, cracking his knuckles. "I think there's been some mistake." Rimmer's boot hit the back wall. He half turned, then went white, realizing there was nowhere to run to. "Please, sir, don't hurt me." Rimmer cowered, stooping down, hiding his head.

Henry's lip curled. He shoved his hand in Rimmer's chest, gathering up a fistful of smock and pulling the other arm back.

"Wait!" Lister pushed chairs out of the way, trying to get to Henry.

Henry did not pause. He let loose with a right cross that should have broken Rimmer's jaw. But it didn't.

Lister blinked. One second Rimmer had been cowering; the next he had somehow gotten _behind_ Henry. Rimmer's right forearm was against Henry's throat, his right hand tight against his left elbow and his_left_ hand on the back of the man's head. And he'd gotten high enough by somehow clamping onto Henry's back, his legs wrapped around the man's hips, heels hard against his thighs.

Rimmer arced his back and Henry went down backwards, landing on the ground with a thump, limp.

Distantly, Lister heard a wail. He turned. It was Eddie, screeching and sobbing.

Lister ran towards Rimmer, watching him extricate himself from Henry's body. "Didjeh kill him?" Lister asked breathlessly.

Rimmer shook his head, watching Henry, his face blank.

"How?" Lister asked, he caught Rimmer's arm just in case the man decided to pass out again.

Kochanski knelt by Henry, checking the man's pulse, "Out cold." She stood up, staring at Rimmer like she'd never seen him before.

"How'd yeh do it man?" Lister asked again.

Rimmer rubbed his forehead. "He left his back open. I hope I broke his smegging spine. Stupid fat goit."

"Where'd you learn that?"

Rimmer glared at him. "Company Simulants."

Lister felt like he was moving and thinking in a vat of molasses. "Homicidal mechanoids?

They didn't just _kill_ yeh?"

Rimmer didn't answer for a moment. "We're used to fight wars. Hard light holograms."

"Whatcha mean? You're not a hologram."

"There are wars. With entire civilizations of GELFs. With resurrected humans in hard-light hologrammatic bodies. With _Agnoids, _ten times worse then Simulants."

Lister shrugged under Rimmer's arm, catching him around the waist, bracing for the larger man to faint again. Kochanski slipped an arm through Lister's. Her hand was cold against his. Other convicts shuffled forward, glancing between them and Henry.

"What happens to regular humans?" Lister asked. The cold in Kochanski's hand had spread to him.

Rimmer laughed. "Guess."

"Killed." Kochanski clutched Lister. "That's right, isn't it? Are they coming after us?"

"Stand back, you." A guard muscled through the milling crowd of convicts. "You did this?" He asked Rimmer.

Rimmer looked at him like the man'd just asked if he could hump Rimmer's mother.

"I asked, 'didjeh beat up Henry?'"

"He did." Lister jumped in, eyes still on Rimmer. "I saw it."

"I saw it too." Kochanski added.

"Warden's gonna want a word…"

"Thank you, Deputy McCray." Ackerman delicately shoved the Guard aside.

"It's acting Deputy _Harlen_, Warden, sir. I've been standin' in for Deputy McCray while he recovers from bein' vomited on by a dinosaur."

"Quite. Stand aside while I speak to the… prisoner, Deputy Hazel."

Lister watched Deputy Harlen suppress the urge to correct the Warden—again—with extreme difficulty.

Ackerman stepped up to Rimmer. "So—you beat up Henry, did you?"

"He did do, sir." Lister answered.

Ackerman clapped Rimmer on the arm. Rimmer sneered at him in response. The Warden continued unabated. "You're a big, strapping man, aren't you? Good in a fight? Excellent. I'm making you a Canary."

"He already was!" the Cat called as he threaded his way through the crowd, Kryten in tow. "He got kicked out!"

"We all did. Because of you," Kochanski snapped.

"Were you a Canary?" Ackerman squinted at Rimmer. "I think I'd remember a brave, stand-up type of fellow like you."

"I think that's why yeh don't recall him, sir." Lister grinned from under Rimmer's arm.

Ackerman tapped Rimmer in the chest with his night stick. "You don't speak much, do you?" The warden turned to Lister, his good eye fixed on him. "Are you part of his… gang?"

Lister laughed and looked at Kochanski, who caught his gaze, eyebrows raised. "Yeah, yeh could say that." Inspiration taking hold, Lister caught Kochanski on the shoulder, "So's she." He nodded at Cat and Kryten. "Them, too."

Ackerman pursed his lips, tapping his night stick against them. "I remember you now."

Lister's grin evaporated.

"You were that a capella singing group. My god, you were ghastly. Anyway. I've good news for you all. I'm making the laconic one—" he nodded at Rimmer, "Second Lieutenant, in effective command of C squad. And you can be his Staff Sergeant, little chatty… guy." He tapped Lister on the shoulder with his club.

"Sir!" Harlen winced. "Sir, is that wise?"

"We've a leadership opening on the Canaries, Hazel. Since the timely death of Second Lieutenant Knot--"

"_Timely,_sir?"

"He did outlive the average life expectancy of a Canary NCO by about 7 months, Hazel."

"Eh. I see, sir. Right. A _timely_ death."

"Knot left a vacuum that needs filling. And unless you think you should start volunteering for suicide missions, Hazel…"

Deputy Harlan grimaced, shaking his head.

"Then it's settled."

"What about _them_ sir?" Lister gestured to Kochanski, Cat and Kryten.

"Them? Oh, very well. They can be Canaries, too." Ackerman pressed a finger to his lips. "You can all be corporals. We've had a few of them die off, as well."

"Warden, sir. Don't you think it'd be better to appoint NCOs from the veterans?" The acting Deputy interjected.

"Don't be silly. All the veterans are _dead_. Now I must be off." Ackerman flicked his hand. "You can take it from here, Deputy Hazel."

"It's Harlen, sir. Hazel's rather girlie, innit?"

"Quite. Although you said it—not I— Hazel." Ackerman turned and minced his way through the convicts.

"All right, you lot. Move along." Harlen waved his truncheon at the milling crowd. "And you—" He turned back, jerking his head at Lister, "Follow me. All of you." Harlen turned towards the mess hall exit.

"Yeah!" Lister pumped his fist. "Problem solved. No more Henry, Shiv or Eddie."

Kochanski followed him, rolling her eyes. "And a whole _lot_ more problems created."

"Eh." Lister snorted. "I'd rather be out doin' what I've _been_ doin' for the past six years then here bein' fought over by two horny gorillas."

Kochanski sighed. "Bad to worse."

They'd gotten half way cross the mess hall before Kochanski and Lister realized Rimmer hadn't moved. Rimmer stood, looking around himself like he'd suddenly been dropped in the middle of nowhere.

Kochanski ran back, catching Rimmer's arm and pulling him along. Lister saw her shoot Rimmer a somewhat… _longing_ look, quickly covered up by a mask of cool superiority. Lister raised an eyebrow at her.

She ignored him.

(ooo)

Harlen escorted Rimmer and Lister back to their cell. He'd already dropped off Kryten and Kochanski and had a discussion with Cat about his _lack_ of quarters. Cat insisted that where he slept was a trade secret. On the way, the Deputy had picked up a canvas-lined cart from supplies.

"Pack up." Harlen punched in the skeleton code on their cell's keypad. The door opened. "Be quick. I'll be waitin'."

Rimmer didn't speak to Lister as he dragged his meagre belongings from his locker and drawers and then, hesitantly, from his hiding places, shoving his Christian Rock Music Vids—with gyrating vestal virgins whose white robes barely covered their ankles—Hammond organ LTs and Junior Risk Champion trophy into Harlan's cart.

Lister picked up his guitar, the only thing he owned, and joined the Deputy outside his old cell. "Where are we goin'?"

"'A' tower," the Deputy supplied, shutting their door. "There's been a die-off recently, so we've room to upgrade your kip. You two—" he paused significantly, "are goin' into a convict officer's suite."

Rimmer perked. "We're officers?"

Harlen paused. "Of a sort. Jus' in the Canaries. It don't hold wit th' regular crew, so don't go bossin' them around."

Harlen led them through a maze of connecting bridges and lifts. Lister hummed tunelessly; Rimmer pointedly ignored him. The Deputy looked somewhat defeated by the whole affair. After time Harlen spoke. "You've inherited a mess, you know that?"

"Eh?" Lister said.

"C-squad. Knots wasn't much loved by the rankies, nor was Staff Sergeant Aimes, but Sergeant Briggs _is_. Everyone thought he'd be promoted to second-lieutenant. I hope yer boy," he nodded at Rimmer, who had faded off into never-land again, only keeping pace due to Lister's tight hold on his upper arm, " has a good head on 'is shoulders. It'll be a rough road, winnin' over the Snake-eaters."

Lister felt queasy. "Can't we resign?"

"Naw. Ackerman would prolly kill you." Harlen thought for a moment. "Or maybe not. Never know with that nutter."

"Snake-eaters… weren't we in the snake-eaters?" Rimmer asked vaguely.

Lister waved him quiet.

"You were?" Harlen asked, "Well that's a right laff, innit? You'll be fine then."

"Er. But we got kicked out." Lister picked at his uniform. "Actually, it was Briggs who requested it."

"Why'd he do that then?"

"Er. Um." Lister bit one of his plaits. "Eh. We shot his foot?"

"What, all of you?"

"No. Just one of us."

"So that was you bunch then?" Harlen looked back. "You were the ones who managed to skutter a whole patrol?"

"It was an accident, sir."

"McCray told me about that one. One of you let yer gun go off in the transport. The bullet ricocheted, takin' out a finger, an ear, breaking one thighbone and a forearm."

"Er. Cat's never gotten the hang of his rifle, sir."

"Why's that? Don't he go to the shootin' range? 10 hours a week, it's mandatory in the Canaries."

"No. Hmn. He doesn't like to shoot. The recoil…" Lister nibbled his thumb nail, "it musses up the line of his suits."

Harlen shook his head. "Then one of you fainted dead away, thinkin' you were under attack—"

Lister nodded at Rimmer, who waved, a distant look in his eyes.

"Killcrazy got excited from the smell o' blood and tried to eat Baxter's thigh. Baxter, 'e went ballistic and used KillCrazy to beat three rankies senseless. He was on 'is fourth when you landed." Harlen paused, palming open the door to tower 'A'. "It took Briggs two hours to sort out the mess in the transport when it arrived. 'E says 'e found you lot cowering in the equipment lockers." The Deputy shook his head. "'E said he wouldn't 'ave minded except when he opened the locker, one of you came out wailin' and wavin' 'is arms, and shot 'im."

"Tha' was Cat again." Lister finished, not looking at Harlan. His fingers twitched for a cig.

"This is a laff, innit? You boys bein' promoted over Briggs." The Deputy grinned, stepping onto the gantry circling 'A' tower's third floor.

Lister shrank into himself.

Rimmer leaned over the gantry railing, looking down into the long stretch of black pit below. "How far does it go?" he asked, seemingly unafraid.

Lister caught Rimmer's arm and pulled him away, not entirely trusting him. "From this floor? High enough to turn you into a giant puddle of chunky ketchup if you jumped."

Harlan tapped his truncheon on the gantry railing. "If you gents are ready…" He stepped back and waved his club towards a nearby door with a flourish. "There it is, lads, your new kip. Step lively."

Lister pulled Rimmer over. The door slipped open, and they entered.

Instead of the 'G' tower's rust and oil detailing, 'A' tower was painted in flat gray. Lister felt a flash of nostalgia. His old quarters on Red Dwarf had been the same matte, neutral gray. He turned to Rimmer. "Would you call that ocean gray or military grey?"

Rimmer looked at it, squinting. "I'd call it grey."

Lister eyed the man. Such a question would usually prompt a lecture on the subtle distinctions between military vs. ocean gray, and how and where they were employed to delineate crew quarters and access corridors on the ship.

Instead, Rimmer glanced around as if the issue was unimportant. Lister followed suit, noticing the privacy screen between the common area and the half bath with some relief. Although the room's walls were sheet metal painted gray, they no longer had a front wall made of fencing. Having a front wall that couldn't be seen through gave the small room privacy -something Lister hadn't realized he'd missed. Even the tarry oil stink was gone, replaced by a crisp bleach scent.

"You know where the Canary L-facs are. But there are a few extras for NCOs such as yerself. You get yer own mess. You get yer own showers. Both first floor 'A' tower. You have access to th' shootin' range and gym twenty four-seven. You eat when you want and sleep when you want. You drill yer crew when you want. Not much in th' way of military discipline here. Mission debriefin's in Deputy McCray's office. First floor."

Lister picked his guitar out of Harlen's cart, placing it gingerly against a wall. "Yeah. I've been." He strummed a chord.

"I'd recommend you getting acquainted wit yer crew and Briggs. Th' snake-eaters are tight now. Not more'n twenty, twenty-five if you count you lot."

"I see."

"Right. I prolly won't be seein' you as McCray's back from taking a sicky in the next few." Deputy Harlen nodded. "Briggs and the rest of the snake-eaters are on mission. They'll be back in a few, too. Good luck to you boys. You'll need it." He gave them a mock salute and turned, taking the cart with him.

Lister watched him go, giving one of his locks a good chew.

As soon as the Deputy was gone, Rimmer exploded from a standing start beside him, vaulting himself into the uppermost bunk.

"Rimmer." Lister walked over, looking up. "You _never_ take th' top bunk."

"So, Listy?" Rimmer examined his nails. "I thought a change of pace might be in order. Even your fuzzy little mind should be able to comprehend that."

"Rimmer." Lister crossed his arms and leaned on the top bunk. "You always get nightmares when you've been in the top bunk. You start screamin' about floatin' off Io into space or bein' turned into a swing set or some such. You're just doin' this to annoy me."

"Lister. I seem to remember I wasn't speaking to you." Rimmer gave him a glare, then turned over on his side and ignored him.

"Yer such a prat." Lister sat down on the bottom bunk, cupping his head in his hands. He looked at the room, thinking about Briggs and the Cat. Then he thought about Kochanski and Kryten. Bad situation, all around.

"Rim—" he began, turning up to look at the bunk above him. Then he stopped. The smeghead wouldn't respond, he knew it.

Somehow, the thought of that hit Lister a little harder then it had a right to. He bit his lip and sniffled.


	5. Kochanski

-1Red Dwarf Fanfic: Last Humans

Chapter 4 : Kochanski

Summary: Wherein Lister is miserable, Kochanski is horny and Kryten is appalled.

Warnings: Graphic sexual situations, heterosexual sex

Beta: Roadstergal, Rack, Cazflibs

Chapter Rating: MA(18+)

(ooo)

Kochanski

(ooo)

//Ship Serial No: Red Dwarf JMC66350

//Ship's Time: 18:27-05.25-002.343

//AI-Holly-Executive: ENDOCRINE ANOMALY IN WET-WARE UNIT AJRIMMER023044

//AI-Holly-Executive: AJRIMMER023044 NO LONGER A GIT

"He's different, somehow," Kochanski whispered to Dave. He glanced up, looking distant. Kochanski eyed him. She'd stopped seeing her Dave whenever this scruffy scouser space-bum went quiet and thoughtful. It'd taken a while, and she'd been damn glad when it had stopped.

"Yeah," Dave said, chewing on a lock.

Kochanski wrinkled her nose at the habit but said nothing. "He moves differently."

"No kiddin'." Dave replied, dropping his plait. "Never seen Rimmer twat a man in the space of a heartbeat b'fore." Dave went quiet for a moment. Kochanski could feel something bubbling up to the surface, so she didn't jump in immediately. "Except once. In a game. He'd gotten these abilities, you see—bare-fisted fighting. He sort of moves like that, except—" Dave glanced at the other man, still eating alone and reading his book at the table furthest from them in the small NCO mess. "'Cept it's more real now."

"Yeah," Kochanski said, a little breathless. Her skin flushed hot as she watched Rimmer chew, his lips flattened and wiggling like the tip of a hedgehog's nose. He chewed again, and then flipped a page.

"Oh, no." Dave snapped his fingers in front of her face. "No, You don't."

Kochanski started, then turned to Lister. "What?"

"Yer not getting all breathless and blushy over... him." Dave jerked his thumb at Rimmer.

She laughed weakly, playing with the hair at the back of her neck. "I'm not. No. Of course not. The idea is... laughable. Still..." Her eyes wandered back to Rimmer. "He's got such nice shoulders."

"What? No, he hasn't! He's a git, a smeg-pot!"

"Yes, you're right, of course. But those arms..." She rested her chin in her hand.

"You've gone daft!" Dave tried to get her attention, then noticed that Rimmer had stripped out of his jumpsuit, down to his waist. He was wearing just a wife beater underneath. He hadn't noticed that before. "Oh."

Rimmer felt them both staring and turned to look.

Kochanski smiled and gave a little wave. Dave hid his eyes behind his hand. Rimmer lifted his palm, staring at her like she'd grown a second head. With a penis sprouting from the chin.

"I mean, theoretically, if he kept his mouth shut..." She nibbled at a chunk of sautéed chicken. "Theoretically, he'd be... Oh, what am I saying? He's a bastard." She turned away and kept turned for a moment. Her eyes crept back. "Still... everyone loves a bastard."

"You've gone mad, Kris." Dave shook his head, picking up a forkful of curry.

Kochanski looked down at her own sautéed chicken and veggies. She also had a side of cottage cheese with pineapple chunks, and a very good cup of tea. The new mess facilities were small, just two ten-seater tables, but well-appointed. They even had a menu to choose from, and could program in a few favorite simple dishes. No more weevil. Kochanski picked up a forkful of chicken. Still, she missed the taste. Somewhat. A little. After she'd gotten over the initial repulsion, she had actually found it rather unique; far less bland then chicken. She wondered, briefly, if she could program space weevil in orange sauce into the dispenser menu - then she squashed the thought roundly. Disgusting. Truly. Kochanski picked up a spoonful of cottage cheese and licked it clean. She put the spoon back and sighed. Had cottage cheese, even with pineapple chunks, always been this boring? "When are the rest of the Snakes back?" she asked, chewing a pineapple chunk.

"It's been a week. Any time now. Unless they're dead." Lister's eyes wandered back to Rimmer. "Shouldn't be more'n a few days. Rimmer'd know more but he..." He trailed off and sighed. "I need to talk to him." Dave threw his fork down on his tray beside his untouched meal.

Kochanski caught his hand. "Do you think that's a good idea?"

Dave looked down at her, brown puppy dog eyes and all. Her heart melted a little. "I need to do something. It's makin' me go spare." He looked back at Rimmer.

Not for the first time, Kochanski wondered about Dave and Rimmer's co-dependence. They fought, bitched, screamed, wailed and snarked at each other, but whenever they weren't together, they were less alive. It hadn't been that way in her dimension. Her Dave had never cared for Rimmer, and hadn't once voluntarily spent time with the man. After Dave had been promoted out of the Technician quarters, she'd never seen him and Rimmer together again.

Kochanski stood. "I'll go talk to him, okay? I'll try to sort it out for you."

Dave glanced at Rimmer, looking about a single line of bad soap-opera dialog from crying.

Kochanski bit back a giggle at the sight. Her Dave hadn't been nearly as soppy. This Dave was so raw in his emotions that it edged into comical. She placed a hand on his shoulder. "I'll try to work something out."

Dave nodded.

Rimmer had sat as far away from them as he could. Still, the room was not large, and it took only a moment for Kochanski to walk over and stand behind him.

"Good book?" she asked, pulling up a chair.

Rimmer pursed his lips, slipped a bookmark between the pages he'd been reading, and set the book down. He didn't turn to look at her. "What do you want?" he asked, with all the warmth of an ice chest filled with liquid nitrogen.

"I just wanted to talk." Kochanski stumbled a bit. Her face felt hot. She'd become rather absurdly focused on Rimmer's arm, how close it was to her own and how the closeness of it prickled her skin. He smelled of dollarpound store aftershave and that waxy type of soap that came in decorative animal shapes. "Um," she added.

"If it's about Lister, I'm not interested." Rimmer picked up a forkful of poached salmon.

Kochanski took a deep breath. "He feels really bad about what happened, Arnold. Really bad."

"I don't care." Rimmer picked up his book again, chewing as his gaze flicked over the pages.

"War Engines." Kochanski read the title of the book. "Looks... looks interesting." Her mouth felt dry. She couldn't think of another thing to say.

"It is," Rimmer said, in way that made it very clear to Kochanski that he thought she wasn't. He turned to look at her. "Miss Kochanski..." he began, leaving a long, contempt-filled pause. "Go away."

Kochanski's lips pressed into a thin line. Wasn't she brilliant, witty, personable and, if she did say it herself, hotter then two Latin porn stars practicing their craft while being burned alive on a ship with a deteriorating orbit around a sun? Why, yes, she was. How dare he be contemptuous! "Rimmer—"

"Go."

"I just wanted to—"

"Away."

Kochanski's hands clenched. "Lister—"

"Go."

She tried again, "He—"

"Away."

"Look—"

"Go. Away."

Kochanski bolted to her feet. "Look!" she shouted, slamming her palms down on the table. Rimmer took a breath to interrupt,. She lunged for him, placing her hand over his mouth. "Shut up. Okay?"

He blinked at her, stunned by the physical contact.

"I'm not going to go away until you let me finish what I have to say."

Rimmer caught her hand and did something to it that she couldn't quite follow. Then he rolled his palm, and she flinched. It hurt. She pulled her hand back, cradling her wrist and glaring at him.

He stood, not saying a word, not looking at her. He picked up his book and walked towards the exit.

Kochanski glanced at Lister, who looked at her with those same sad eyes, then followed, half-running to keep up with Rimmer's longer stride.

"Wait!" she called. The mess-hall door slid shut in her face. She waited a few seconds, shaking her hands impatiently, until it registered her presence and opened.

He was already halfway down the hall to the lifts by the time she got through. She sprinted to catch up.

Rimmer heard her footsteps on the metal floor and stepped up his pace, hitting the lift door button with his fist. It opened.

Kochanski cursed her luck and put on another burst of speed. She hit the lift doors just as they finished closing, thrusting her hand through and activating the fail-safe. They jerked open.

She jumped in.

Rimmer looked at her like she was the re-animated corpse of his most annoying dead relative.

"I told you I wouldn't go away."

"I'm not interested in whatever you have to say." Rimmer slouched against the lift wall.

Kochanski glanced at the lift display. "Going to the rec deck?" She eyed him. "How do you feel?"

"Why'd you follow me?" Rimmer lifted his head and returned her gaze, contempt at full force.

Kochanski's nostrils flared. A familiar desire to smack Rimmer twitched in her fingers.

"Not answering?" Rimmer's nostrils followed Kochanski's lead, over took them and took the gold. "What do you care, Miss Kochanski?" He turned towards her, crowding her with his taller frame.

She stepped back a bit. Then she took hold of herself. Who was she? She was Kris Kochanski, the best astronavigationist JMC had ever seen, and she was not about to be intimidated by a smeghead. She stepped forward, straightened to her full height, and looked up at him. "I do care."

"All you care about is getting back to your own dimension. And your own Dave. You don't belong here. You'd be the first to say that. As soon as you get your chance, you'll leave."

Kochanski opened her mouth. Nothing came out.

Rimmer relented, his shoulders falling as he stepped back and turned away from her. The lift doors opened. "Look, it doesn't matter. What Lister did... it's not your concern. Just let it be." He stepped through.

She leaned back against the lift wall. She cupped her head in her hand, wrapping her other hand tight over her stomach. An odd mix of pain and anxiety rippled through her.

The lift doors started to hiss shut.

Kochanski looked up. "No!" She burst towards them, catching them before they closed and slipping through. "Wait!"

Rimmer turned back. She ran to a stop beside him. "Maybe you're right. I would leave if I had the chance. Maybe." She teased her fingers through her hair. "I don't know anymore. Dave..." She bit her lip. "I don't know if I'll ever have the chance. And you two... you've got me so confused."

Rimmer folded his arms, watching her with an expression that wasn't sympathetic.

She plowed on, anyway. "There's something about you. All of you. This universe—" She waved at the empty space, the pit, the tower. "My world is perfect. So perfect. Perfect childhood, perfect school, perfect career, perfect boyfriend who changed just for me. So perfect it makes your teeth ache. And this place is so imperfect. So bloody flawed. Everything is ugly and wrong. And yet." She looked at Rimmer. "And yet. It's so much more real. More honest. I feel like I've woken up. I'm always saying 'my Dave this' and 'my Dave that,' but..." Her eyes flicked to the ceiling.

Rimmer shifted his weight.

"But, in truth..." her voice became small, "in truth I think I respect you more. I mean, you and Dave. This Dave. You're both so boorishly, unrelentingly... you." Kochanski blushed. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to talk so much... I mean—"

Rimmer closed the distance between them, placing his hand over her mouth, mimicking the gesture she'd done to him earlier. "Then don't..." he leaned in closer, "talk so much."

She blinked, suddenly fascinated by his hazel eyes. Yellow and green and brown, with just a hint of blue. And now, with him leaning close, she could smell him under that ghastly aftershave and cheap soap. It reminded her rather sharply of Mr. Aimeson, her sixth grade biology teacher, the first man she'd ever had a crush on. A geeky, cardigan-clad man who was fond of allsorts and classic cars, and had strangely broad shoulders and long, lean hands. Something dusty and chemical, yet distinctly male, lurked under all that.

Rimmer held her gaze for a moment more, then turned and walked off down the gantry.

She gasped, startled. Then she felt angry. How dare he?

Kochanski dashed after him. "I told you all that about me, and you just walk away?"

Rimmer sneered. "What do you want, a medal? A commendation from the Captain? A parade welcome?"

She stopped dead at that, her fingers convulsing, her lips moving to in an attempt to articulate her fury. The contempt, the disregard, the casual sneering, the flaring nostrils... all of it was spinning inside her mind, tipping her into a rage. She wanted to smash something over the man's head.

Kochanski ran after him, caught his arm and spun him into a stop. She reached up to catch his neck. At that instant she flashed through her memories of mooning over Mr. Aimeson and being teased by the other girls for her crush. After all, the P.E. teacher was so much more dishy. All those times lingering at the man's desk too long. The one time she'd got up the nerve to bring in a pack of allsorts and give it to him. Most of all, his casual ignorance of all her feelings for him. Her first heartbreak, and the man hadn't even bloody well known.

Her lips were on his before she even realized anything had happened. His muscles stiffened; she could feel him moving his hands to push her away. She held tighter, unlocking the kiss for a moment. "Stop."

"I'm not doing anything." Rimmer looked baffled, his hands balled against her ribs.

She caught his face, pressing up against him. "You were going to push me away."

"Was I?" Rimmer relaxed his hands, holding her lightly.

"You were." Something about his resistance made her not want to stop. "Why?"

"I'd say I'm not experienced, but that isn't exactly true." Rimmer replied.

Kochanski glanced up at him. She expected to see false bravado, pompousness, some old-Rimmer full-of-himself-ness. Instead, she saw nothing but pale hazel eyes that looked at her with a certain mournful emptiness. "Did you lose someone?" she asked, inspired.

He didn't answer. Instead, he took her lead and ran with it, pressing her up against the wall. He leaned down to kiss her, and she ran her tongue over his lips, teasing them open. He tasted faintly of salmon and asparagus, strongly of black tea. She felt his hands tangle in her hair as he tightened his grip on her.

She could feel desperation radiating from him. Not for the sex itself, she realized, but desperate to excavate a trace of something within her. Something that reminded him of some else he'd lost. The thought of that made her feel cheap. And that thought aroused her even more.

He fumbled for the rec-room door control. It slid, open and he moved her through into the room beyond.

The rec room was a brightly lit large room— a wide gantry over looked the middle, a mixed use space with padded floors. They stumbled onto the second floor gantry, then down the stairs into the pit.

Kochanski looked around. "Where? It's all out in the open."

Rimmer didn't answer; he just drew her off to the side of the gym, past a row of stacked crates someone was using as target practice for the harpoon guns. Behind the crates was a space just large enough for two people. Rimmer pulled her into it, stripping off his jumpsuit top and wife beater.

Kochanski had never seen him without a shirt on before. She paused a moment as she was pulling off her top to gather up an eyeful. He was fit. She finished pulling off her top and slipped her arms around his chest, rubbing the tight muscles of his back. He, in turn, leaned down to nuzzle her neck and catch her around the hips, lowering her to the floor.

When her bare skin touched it, she hissed and flinched away. "It's cold!" she whimpered.

"Get on your knees." Rimmer commanded.

She did so, suddenly grateful for the awkward rubber knee pads on the canary smocks. His hands moved behind her, unzipping her jumpsuit further and slipping it down to her knees.

Kochanski shivered. She felt vulnerable and a bit uncertain. Suddenly, everything seemed too fast, too real. Rimmer stroked her back and fumbled with his own smock.

Kochanski bit her lip, about to protest, when she felt his hands between her legs and gasped instead.

Just like that, he was inside her. Kochanski realized with a start that Dave's constant teasing had been a bunch of bullocks. The man wasn't as big as Dave—who, admittedly, was suffering from more then a touch of porn-star-itis—but he was a good size, and that position made it a tight squeeze. She gasped and gritted her teeth, feeling all sorts of good as he started a steady rhythm inside her.

His breath was hot against her neck. He wrapped one arm around her side, and cupped one of her breasts with the other hand. His chest warmed her back, covering every inch of it. It had been a long time since she'd had sex with anyone so much taller then herself. Her Dave didn't have much height on her. She had to admit some part of her had craved the feeling of being completely overwhelmed. Although she had never thought that feeling could come from Rimmer. Somehow, the reality that she was fucking that emotional monster, that sneering smeg-head, made her even more aroused. She moaned and pressed back against him.

Rimmer convulsed against her, chancing a whispered groan as he came—more than a bit too quickly. She grinned to herself, feeling disappointed and, thank goodness, superior as he leaned on her, panting. She started to crawl out from under him. He caught her and wouldn't let her move.

"Arnold—" She began, a smug note in her voice. Then she felt him harden again inside her and she moaned in surprise. He resumed his steady rhythm. His hand slipped between her legs. She panted and arced against him; he took that moment to bite her neck rather hard.

As she whimpered, a distant part of her mind was impressed with his multi-tasking abilities. Another part realized that he was, in his mind, making love to a woman who was rather more particular about how she liked to be pleased then Kochanski—who was, to her continual shame, very responsive. She'd always wished to be one of those girls who was hard, so very hard, to impress. But, as an old boyfriend had said, 'hand on thigh, mouth on neck, home run imminent.'

And it was. She could feel a satisfying orgasm building up in her very quickly. And she'd so wanted to be disappointed. Kochanski bit her lip, stifling a moan as her body spiraled out of her control.

"Do yeh think they went in here?"

"I'm not entirely certain, sir. But I did see two people enter earlier."

Kochanski stiffened. Rimmer stopped moving, then hauled Kochanski back until she was sitting in his lap, away from the open end of the small enclosure. His hand was over her mouth. He resumed thrusting, now moving against her entire weight.

Kochanski's eyes were wide. The gall of the man. The nerve. They should stop. They should.

Kochanski gasped against Rimmer's hand, closing her eyes.

"Didjeh hear somethin', Kryten?"

Shock and fear and guilt and the steady rhythm of Rimmer's thrusts all combined to send her crashing over the top. She bit his hand rather hard and he hissed in her ear.

"There. I heard it again. Somethin's down there, Krytes."

"Er. Sir, it probably was a rat. A space rat. Very large, sir."

Rimmer lowered her from his lap, letting her sit down against the crate. He pressed a finger to his lips.

"I... I guess yer right." The gantry creaked as weight moved off of it. "Let's go check the movie hall."

The door slid closed.

Kochanski let out the breath she'd been holding and felt guilt constrict in her chest.

Rimmer pulled on his wife-beater, then his smock over the top.

With a start, Kochanski realized she'd just had sex in her boots. With a man who was still in his boots. She chewed on her thumb nail, working herself into a silent rage over the indignity of it all. She pulled her shirt back on, yanking it down rather harder then necessary. "You," she snapped, turning to Rimmer. "How dare you!"

Rimmer picked at a crust of dried semen on the front of his jumpsuit, his nostrils flaring in disgust. "How dare I what? Finish what you started?"

Kochanski lapsed into silence, still gnawing on her thumb.

He peeked around the crate edge, looking up at the gantry. Then he stood and started to pull on his jump-suit, getting it as straight as he could.

"Don't tell Dave, okay?" Kochanski's anger evaporated, and she fell into an echoing chasm of guilt. "Okay?"

Rimmer looked back at her. "If you didn't want Lister to know, you shouldn't have done it in the first place."

She bolted to her feet, pushing a finger into Rimmer's chest. "You bastard! You're going to tell him!"

Rimmer shrugged. "You've solved the problem, haven't you, Kris?" He leered at her. "Rather more vigorously then I suspect you were intending. But now that I've got something on him, there's no point in me not speaking to Lister anymore."

Kochanski grimaced in horror. "I can't believe you. Is there a human being somewhere inside you? Or have you already garroted him to death?"

"There was." Pain flitted across Rimmer's face.

Kochanski hesitated, "Who was she?"

Rimmer looked at her. "It doesn't matter. Thank you, Miss Kochanski, for a lovely evening." He turned back towards the stairs.

"Wait!" Kochanski raised her hand. "Is that it?"

Rimmer glanced back at her, "What more do you want? Shall we get married? You can have my babies?"

Kochanski blanched at that, stunned into silence.

Rimmer mounted the stairs three by three and was out the door before she could think of anything else to say.

Babies. Kochanski pressed her hand against her stomach, suddenly very frightened. She hadn't thought of that.

(ooo)

Kochanski lay on her bunk. She'd already worried her lip till it was bleeding. Now she'd set about tearing up her cuticles.

How could she have done that with Rimmer?

She knew, of course. It'd been a slow downward spiral but it'd begun when he'd taken that sexual magnetism virus. The virus showed her what she could find attractive about him, and then amplified it till it was overwhelming. The arrogance, the ridiculous sense of superiority, the caddishness. It was so different from her Dave's careful sensitivity and measured sweetness. And it made her unspeakably sweaty.

Now, with him different, somehow... Not being the astonishing git she knew so well. Superior, arrogant, caddish—but also mysterious and tragic.

She sighed and turned over on her side. She felt like a heroine in some ridiculous romance.

The door slid open.

Kryten shuffled into the room, starting when he saw her. "Oh... hello, Ma'am." He couldn't look her in the eye.

"Hello, Kryten." Kochanski sat up on her bed.

"Mr. Lister was looking for you earlier, Ma'am. He was curious where you and Mr. Rimmer had gone to." Kryten busied himself rearranging knick-knacks on Kochanski's table, still unable to look at her.

"What's wrong, Kryten?"

"What, Ma'am? Nothing."

"You're terrible at lying." Kochanski leaned her arms on her knees and sighed, "Just tell me, Kryten."

Kryten stilled, then turned in a burst of awkward motion. "Oh, Ma'am! How could you?"

"What?" Kochanski stiffened.

"How could you do that with Mr. Rimmer?"

She went pale. "How did you know?"

"I saw you, Ma'am." Kryten jiggled up and down, his hands hovering near his face. "All series 4000 mechanoids are equipped with infra-red vision. I saw you two-" He gulped. "I saw you two bumping uglies, knocking boots, sausing the clam, doing the mattress dance—"

"Yes, Kryten!" Kochanski threw her hands up. "I did it! I'm guilty!"

"But... but, with Mr. Rimmer?" Kryten dabbed at his eyes with a tissue. "Ma'am, were you temporarily blind? Insane? Epileptic?" Kryten wobbled over to her. "You had a seizure, didn't you, Ma'am? And he took advantage of you?"

She shook her head.

"A stroke then, Ma'am?" He hovered over her. "What's your full name, rank and birth date, Ma'am?"

"Kryten, I'm fine," Kochanski snapped, exasperated.

"Oh, Ma'am. How can you be fine? You willingly slapped skins with Mr. Rimmer. I insist you check yourself into medical bay, immediately." Kryten tried to hustle her to her feet. She slapped away his jelly-plast hands.

"Look." She was starting to feel defensive. "He's not that bad."

"Not that bad, Ma'am?" Kryten's voice was getting shrill. "The man who has tried to use you as a human shield no fewer then a half dozen times, Ma'am? He's the human equivalent of an e-book-tedious, self-serving and spineless!"

"I know. I know." Kochanski pressed her fingers to her temple.

"Did you forget, somehow, Ma'am?" Kryten's hands hovered over her head. "Are you concussed? Did you fall? Were you pushed?"

"No!" Kochanski shoved his hands away. "Look. Just drop it, okay, Kryten?"

"But, Ma'am. I can't help but worry when you're acting so odd."

She glared at the mechanoid. "You don't know me all that well, Kryten."

"So you usually are a woman with loose morals and no discernment, Ma'am?"

"Kryten!" Kochanski brought up her hand, her thumb and fore-finger close together. "You are this far from having your shop-class-assignment-shaped head shoved down the recyc chute. Drop the subject."

"Fine, Ma'am," Kryten huffed, and returned to his cleaning.

Kochanski leaned back in her bed, closing her eyes. She was tired. It was late. She tried to ignore Kryten as he puttered around the room.

She was just about asleep when Kryten spoke.

"Have you told Lister yet, Ma'am?"


	6. History

-1Red Dwarf Fanfic: Last Humans

Chapter 5 : History

Summary: Wherein Rimmer remembers things wrong, Lister remembers things wrong and Rimmer goes a bit more crazy.

Warnings: Language, Sexual situations, slash, Rimmer/Lister

Beta: Roadstergal, Rack, Cazflibs

Chapter Rating: T(PG-13)

(ooo)

History

(ooo)

//Ship Serial No: Red Dwarf JMC66350

//Ship's Time: 17:15-09.23-002.335

//AI-Holly-Economy: COURSE CORRECTION: ON-ROUTE TO SATURN DROP

//AI-Holly-Economy: QUARINTINE STATUS: POSSIBLE INFESTATION BY ALIEN LIFE FORM

//AI-Holly-Economy: ALIEN LIFE FORM OBSERVED TO BE SMALL, FURRY AND SUPERCILLIOUS

Rimmer felt positively boyant as he trotted down the corridor to his bunk. His shift had ended and he had some wonderfully _terrible_ news to tell Lister. News he'd sat on for the last six months while the scouser finished off his suspended animation sentence in the stasis chamber.

Rimmer glowed as he punched in the code for his room, imagining the distress, the frustration, the disappointment his bad news held for Lister. And Lister, being under house arrest, had nowhere _at all_ to run. He would be stuck with Rimmer and Rimmer's bad news for days.

The door slid open. Rimmer almost danced inside.

Lister lounged on _Rimmer's_ bunk, picking something that looked like a broken ceramic plate off the floor. His ball-peen hammer lay beside the wreckage.

"What is that?" Rimmer sniffed. "And why are you on my bunk."

Lister looked up, popping a shard into his mouth. "I found a popadum under your bed."

Rimmer gaped at him. "It must have been there for a year and a half, you disgusting slob."

"Takes a bit to soften up, yeah." Lister replied around a mouthful. "Had to break it apart with me gran's hammer."

"You're going to tear up your gums eating that, you are." Rimmer sucked on his front teeth. "And you're going to get botulism. Get out of my bunk before I drag you out. I don't want that foul garbage in my sheets."

"Erm," Lister replied, fishing another shard off the floor and lying back in Rimmer's bunk. A belligerent smile creeped across his lips as he flicked his magazine back up and flipped a page.

Rimmer tensed, nostrils flaring. Then he remembered. _The bad news._ "So Listy… I have something to tell you." Rimmer hopped up beside Lister's bunk. He wrinkled his nose at Lister's stink. Ciggies, booze and curry.

Lister folded his magazine and looked up at Rimmer expectantly.

Rimmer hesitated. What was it he wanted to say? Lister's smell was so offensive it had somehow blanked out his short term memory. It also seemed to have switched on a loud rushing sound in Rimmer's ears. He swayed, dizzy, and had to catch the bunk to keep from falling.

"Say what you have to say and stop leering in me face, Rimmah." Lister snapped.

"I miss—" Rimmer bit down on his tongue. What had he been about to say? _I missed you_? His mind whirled in shock. "I…I…" he stammered.

Lister's look of irritation dropped, replaced by concern. "Are you—"

Rimmer didn't want Lister to see him confused. He had to do something quick. Very quick. And for some reason his vocal cords were refusing to offer up one of his endless snarky quips.

He leaned in and kissed Lister. Thinking, in rapid succession, _ah-hah! Take _that _Lister. Rimmer, you sly fox, you've outwitted him again! _Then, _wait, that probably won't have the intended effect. _And finally, _what was the intended effect?_

Almost the instant he'd touched Lister's lips, Rimmer jerked back, hit his head on the underside of the bunk and crumpled to the floor, all the contrast and color leaking out of his vision.

When he could see again, Lister was on top of him, leaning down into his face and kissing him with liberal amounts of sloppy tongue.

Rimmer tasted the booze, the cigs and, yes, the curry and tried to recoil, into the floor, away from Lister. "What are you doing you smeggy—"

Lister grinned against his mouth. "You opened the topic, mate." He caught Rimmer's face between his hands.

Rimmer wanted to say something, something that would put Lister in his place in a heart beat, something nasty and cutting and cruel. Absolutely nothing came to mind. And as Lister's hands caught behind his head and pulled him into another kiss, the only thing cutting that Rimmer could think of was, _this is the most unsanitary thing I've done all year._ But he figured Lister would consider _it_ a compliment because, at that moment, Rimmer didn't care if it _was_ unsanitary.

Rimmer caught Lister's shoulders and pulled him over till he was on top of the scouser. They paused for a moment, Lister in the midst of chortling and Rimmer horrified at what had just happened. "I can't believe—"

Lister did something with his hips and thighs, that had Rimmer gasping with the shock of oh-my-God-that-felt-good and falling over sideways with an awkward thump. Lister climbed on top again, folding his arms over Rimmers chest and leaning into them, a silly grin plastered on his open, boyish features.

Rimmer grunted and arced his back, pitching Lister forward. He caught one of the scouser's arms and rolled, pinning both arms as soon as he was back on top. Lister tried to fight against Rimmer's hold, still giggling.

Some part of him thrilled at being stronger then Lister. He'd spent his whole life hating wrestling because his older brothers always used it as an excuse to twist him into painful contortions and then show their handiwork off to his father as a joke. And he'd never been big enough to fight back.

This was different. Lister was rough-housing, but there was no malice in it. And it was… _fun_. For the first time, in, well, _ever_, Rimmer felt rather laddish. Liberated for a moment from his mum's remote disapproval and his brittle father's brittle expectations.

When they finally broke apart, Lister lay against the floor, arms out flung, in a gesture of mirth and submission. "Boss," he said, grinning.

(ooo)

//Ship Serial No: Red Dwarf JMC66350

//Ship's Time: 03:39-05.31-002.343

//AI-Holly-Executive: UNAUTHORIZED MAINFRAME ACCESS ORIGINATING FROM FLOOR 13

//AI-Holly-Executive: UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS POSSIBLY SPACE WEEVILS

Rimmer paced the floor of his cell. Lister watched, distracted from his knitting. Rimmer'd woken in the middle of the night. And he'd proceeded to pace till Lister was wide awake as well.

"Tell me what's wrong, yeah?" Lister dropped a stitch.

Rimmer glanced at Lister, and Lister could feel him weighing the answer. "I'm having dreams. Memories, really. Of things that never happened."

"Ah? Like what?"

"Hrm." Rimmer turned away and sat down at the table. He picked up a pack of cards and Lister went back to his knitting.

After a few shuffles, Rimmer spoke up again. "You said we all died in an accident while you were in stasis. I'm remembering a time on Red Dwarf _after_ you got out of stasis."

"Yeah." Lister laughed. "We lived together for five years after that, I was the last human—"

"No, not that. You got out of stasis and no accident had happened." Rimmer dealt a round of solitaire.

"Yeah? I don't remember any—"

"I know." Rimmer said firmly.

Lister's brow tightened. "But there is somethin'…" He set down his knitting and pulled a foot into his lap, chewing thoughtfully on a toe-nail. "I met with Hollister, yeah? I saw somethin', a home-video of his. Done in Chicago at the space port there, whatsit… the Rabbit—"

"O'Hare." Rimmer's voice was flat.

"Yeah, that. I saw _meself_. At O'Hare. But I've never been."

Rimmer nodded and stared fixedly at his cards.

"So wha' else do yeh remember?" Lister asked.

Rimmer flipped over a card, tension rippled over his shoulders. "I don't want to talk about it." He lapsed into silence.

Lister watched Rimmer's back. The room felt colder.

Lister's arm ached. He put down his knitting and lay on his bunk, trying to find a position that offered some comfort.

"Stop it," Rimmer snapped, looking up from his game of solitaire.

"Me arm hurts," Lister replied, looking at the thin elasticized bandage over his arm. It had already been a week—accelerated by healing nanos—and it seemed to be aching worse now then when it had just started to heal. Lister laid back and put his arms above his head, glaring at the ceiling. Then he thrashed, kicking off the blankets and sending his knitting needles skittering across the floor.

Rimmer stood up and walked over to Lister's bunk, catching Lister's arm. " I can't stand you writhing about like a snake with an itch."

"It hurts," Lister pushed out of Rimmer's grip.

Rimmer kissed him. Lister yelped into the man's mouth as Rimmer's fingers bore into his injured arm. The position made it impossible for Lister to pull away, so he caught Rimmer's jaw and pushed.

"What are you doing?" Lister asked, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

Rimmer didn't reply. Instead he knelt on Lister's bunk and pressed himself chest to chest against Lister. Lister scrabbled up to a sitting position and flattened himself against the back wall. "What are you doing?" He couldn't help the quiver in his voice.

"I fucked her..." Rimmer whispered, on all fours now.

"What?" Lister pulled himself further away. "Look, if this is about Yvonne McGruder..."

Rimmer looked at him, disgust twitching his lips. "No, it's not about Yvonne McGruder. I gave her one—and you deserve it, squire."

_He's barking_. Lister put his hands up to placate the man. "I'm sorry, man. Whatever I did..."

"No, you're not. You left." Rimmer sat on his heels.

Lister blinked. "I never left. _You_ left."

Rimmer got up and stepped back; his fingers against his temples. His hands were shaking.

"Hey, mate. Are you okay?" He caught Rimmer's shoulder. Rimmer slapped his hand away. Lister felt a flash of annoyance. "I thought you wanted to leave!" He pulled himself up out of his bunk. "You sure as hell were ready to leave..." He had to swallow the word he was going to say, missing a beat. "You were ready to leave us. For that woman, remember? What was her name? Minerva Stork or somethin'?"

"Nirvana Crane," Rimmer said, coldly.

"Yeah, that's the one." Lister edged around Rimmer, still jittery from the kiss.

"Don't you ever say her name." Rimmer's voice was empty of inflection. The sound of it arrested Lister. It was the same lack of emotion he'd seen in the man the night he'd confronted him about the mind patch. Lister felt the crackle of potential violence.

"Why? Didjeh love her, Rimmah?" Lister wished he could take the words back the instant they left his mouth.

Rimmer's nostrils flared. He looked like he'd love nothing more then to hit Lister. Then he caught himself, stepped down and returned to his solitaire. "I chose you." He said, quietly.

"Wha'? When?"

"You left. You asked me to join you. And I said I would." Rimmer shook his head. "Then you came back. Before I could go, you came back." Rimmer closed his eyes. "I was always jealous of you, you know? Your success. Your unbelievable success. When you came back and they were going to court-marshal you… I _loved_ the idea of you being brought down a notch or two. But then I talked to you…" Rimmer looked at him. "You've decided I'm not— You're all over that girl _again_."

"What? Kochanski? I've _always_ been."

"I should punch your lights out, squire."

"Why? Because I like Kochanski?" Lister stepped up to the table, pressing his fingers against it. "Look. I don't know what yer on about. I didn't _leave_ yeh, yeh left me, remember?"

Rimmer hesitated. "Yes. You're right. I left."

"To become Ace, yeah?"

Rimmer nodded, his face slack. "Yes. To become Ace." He said it as if he was testing the reality of the words.

Lister edged towards a chair and sat. "I don't know what else is goin' on. But yeh can't be upset about Kochanski. I _love_ her."

Rimmer glanced up at him, his eyes filled with an opera's worth of tragedy. Lister coughed a bit around the sudden lump in his throat. He couldn't say anything. And Rimmer didn't offer a counterpoint to his silence.

Lister slumped against the table, feeling listless. After playing with two of Rimmer's cards, he asked, "So, why'd yeh kiss me, man?"

Rimmer gagged, looking about ready to cough up his lunch. "I can't…" He muttered.

"Naw. It's not somethin' yeh can just _do_ and 'spect me not to ask."

"Look. I can't explain. It'd be more confusing nonsense and there's already heaps of it to go around." Rimmer gathered up his cards and held his hand out for the ones in Lister's hand.

Lister didn't budge.

"Give me the cards."

"Naw." Lister repeated. "I want you to tell me." He knew it bugged Rimmer. Having a deck with missing cards. He'd work himself into an obsessive fever trying to get them back. Lister nibbled on a waxed paper corner.

Rimmer lunged for his hand. Lister jumped away, grinning. Now it wasn't even about the explanation, but the sheer joy of making Rimmer's face go all pinched and red.

Lister evaded another grab, and jumped onto Rimmer's bunk.

"Get out of my bed."

Lister peeked over the edge at Rimmer. "I'm keeping it and staying here till you talk."

Rimmer glared up at him. "Why are you so irritating? Do you have it as a bullet point on your resume? 'Excellent annoyance skills'?"

Lister shrugged. "It's a talent."

The bed shook. Lister quickly shoved the cards under the blankets. Rimmer thrust himself over the edge and slid over Lister, pinning him down with his greater weight. He started fishing around Lister.

"Give them back."

Lister folded his hands under his head and grinned.

Pain cracked his jaw. Lister yelped, tonguing the bloody tear in his lip. Rimmer'd _punched_ him.

Rimmer jumped down, and, his head bowed, walked towards the door. Lister threw the cards after him. "They're just cards!" He jumped down after him. "Rimmer!"

The door opened, Rimmer slipped through. Lister pelted after him, catching his arm out in the corridor. "Rimmer, come on."

Rimmer turned to him and Lister saw murderous fury cross his face. It disappeared – or Rimmer fought it back. He pulled out of Lister's grip.

Lister didn't follow. He returned to _Rimmer's_ bunk, laid down, and stared at a spot of rust on the corrugated tin ceiling.

(ooo)

It was all very white. And hot. Lister pulled his cap down against the glare, watching the white tent sheltering the buffet and the dinner tables flap in the breeze. Closer to him, two groups of guests—his side rough around the edges, fidgety in stark white and the occasional beige and _her_ side, collected, smart, sun hats, chiffon scarves all in tastefully chill off-white tints—he felt a bit sick with nerves. But he couldn't unstick his lips from his teeth to swallow. His smile was permanent, now. To calm his nerves he fretted over his dress uniform jacket, dusting away imaginary specks, squinting to see any detail against the blaring white of it.

Everything smelled strongly of lilacs. They usually made him sneeze, but he didn't dare. Not today.

Lister glanced up and the Gnositarian preacher in his pale satin robes smiled down at him genially.

A note floated up from the string section. Lister turned with a snap, nearly dropping his cap it was off his head so fast. He tucked it under his arm and watched the guests rise.

_She_ was walking down the aisle. Floating down, buffeted by the white.

Although he'd promised himself, he could feel wet on his face and the overwhelming urge to sniffle, which he stifled.

As she neared, she passed her mother. The dark haired _Kris_ he'd known on Red Dwarf, the one with the pinball smile. The one he'd had a crush on and when he'd woke up like Rip Van Winkle, was married with a daughter and so far away from where he was it made his head spin.

And then, on _his_ side… An aged version of himself, the sight of which made Lister's stomach twist, beside a much younger Lister, a teenage Lister with wide, sad eyes.

Lister turned away from them all and focused on Kristine Kochanski – the_real_ Kristine Kochanski with russet hair and a wide look to her eyes, and the quirky brittleness that made him want to hug her till all those sharp edges dropped off.

She was at the steps; Lister took her hands, glancing at her face through the veil. She was biting her lip, her habit when she was nervous. She caught his eyes and smiled.

He choked back a sob. She wiped his eyes with her gloved fingers.

Lilacs. Lister sneezed. He sneezed till he was gasping. He waved away Kris's help, trying to catch hold of his heaves.

Around him darkness leapt out from behind all the white, and started to shred everything to pieces.

Lister's eyes opened.

A sheet of grimmy, corrugated aluminum siding stared back at him from above his bunk.

"No, ugh…" He rubbed his eyes. It was so real. He tried closing his eyes again, to recapture the feelings of the dream.

Before he'd met Kris, not _his_ Kris, but the Kris from another dimension, he'd had dreams about dating her. It was confusing since he'd been crushing on his Kris—sable haired, a bit delicate and funny. But he'd never even asked _his_ Kris out, much less dated. Then he started having the dreams. Him and Kris, but a reddish haired brittle Kris, not _his_ Kris. He'd realized the dreams were _memories_. Strange memories, 'cause he never was a 'lieutenant in the Space Core', but in those memories he _was_.

Had he _married_ Kris?

Lister pressed his hand against his eyes. It was confusing. Probably the result of muckin' with the space-time continuum once too often.

He sighed. A niggling bit of _something's off_ tugged at him. Lister sat up. Rimmer hadn't come back to kick Lister out of his bunk.

Lister grimaced and looked over the edge. Maybe he'd—uncharacteristically—decided to give up on the top bunk and sleep in the bottom. 'Rimmah—"

It was empty. Rimmer was still gone.

Lister hauled himself out of bed. And, shuffling past his Wilma Flintstone night-light, ordered the door to the hall open.

A flash of motion caught his eye.

He turned, yawning.

Rimmer dangled—one hand gripping a rail—over the A-tower drop.

(ooo)

Rimmer'd wandered the corridors, up and down A-tower till he was back in front of the room he shared with Lister.

An itch had spread throughout his body. He'd tried scratching, but it just made the itch worse. The only thing that eased it was walking—walking, running, moving.

He leaned on the railing outside his quarters and looked down the length of the pit. Fiber optics traced the edges of square bulkheads protruding from the walls. They pulsed with waves of blue light. A soft wind ruffled Rimmer's hair and made his sweaty skin flush cold. The wind stank of metal and grease.

He leaned over the railing and stared hard into the darkness. Eventually, he noticed a sheen of light almost a hundred meters below him. It was so faint that it could barely be seen.

He needed to touch it.

The itch flared up, making his fingers shake. He felt dry, desiccated like a corpse, and he knew if he tried to touch that light, the trying would fill him with everything he needed.

Rimmer clambered over the railing and stood, his arms threaded through the metal bar, his heels on the metal grating, balanced over the pit.

The wind gusted harder and his vision spun. Some part of him screamed in terror, and his whole body stung with fear.

He panted, and he was furious. Furious at the railing for holding him back, at him for _needing_ it to and at the light for being so far away.

The itch and the dry subsided for a moment, then roared through him. He needed more.

Hooking one arm through the metal railing, he leaned forward, letting the other arm and one foot dangle in thin air.

His skin was lit a faint blue; wind pressed hard against his fingers.

He knelt, grabbed onto the lowest crossbeam of the railing behind him, and freed his feet to dangle in the dark air. For a long moment, he watched the glow far below him, the only thing keeping him from falling his grip on the metal bar. Terror throbbed in him, sending tides of nausea and pain through his body. His mind became disjointed; parts of it fell away, leaving a razor sharp clarity.

He let go of one arm, reaching out to touch the glow. Not close enough.

He looked up, looking at his straining hand, and released a finger.

Fear slammed into him again. His face cracked into a grimace. He hated his cowardice. It infuriated him. He needed to kill it.

He started to unwrap another finger.

Hands scrabbled over his wrist.

Rimmer glanced up, furious.

"What the smegging hell do you think you're doing!" Lister watched him with wild eyes, pulling at his wrist.

Rimmer grit his teeth. "Smeg off." Then he let go.

The jerk when he hit the reach of Lister's arms nearly tore him out of Lister's grip. But the man held on with stubborn strength. "Get up!" Lister shouted, pulling until Rimmer could see the muscles of his neck straining. "Help me, you goited son of a goit!"

Rimmer smiled. He'd never felt so good. The fear was gone, replaced by a warmth that radiated through him, a warmth that felt like every one of his nerves had been swaddled in its own little down comforter. Out of generosity Rimmer grabbed the railing and hauled himself up into Lister's shaking arms.

"Hi," he said to Lister's thick Rasta plaits.

"You… you…" Lister stammered for a long moment. "Why?"

Rimmer stared at him, confused.


	7. Jitterman

Red Dwarf Fanfic: Last Humans

Chapter 6: Jitterman

Summary: Wherein Lister is horrified, Ackerman is horny and Bloopy Bear is injured.

Warnings: Language, strong sexual content, slash and het

Beta: Roadstergal, Zekass, Rack

Chapter Rating: MA(18+)

(ooo)

Jitterman

(ooo)

//Ship Serial No: Red Dwarf JMC66350

//Ship's Time: 18:10-06.01-002.343

//AI-Holly-Executive: UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS ATTEMPTS PERSIST

//AI-Holly-Executive: ROGUE SERVICE ROBOT SUSPECTED

Lister kept his hand on Rimmer's forearm as the man jittered through dinner in the mess hall. It was only a light touch, but it was enough to give Lister time to grab Rimmer if he bolted.

Rimmer fretted, cycling through eating, shoving his plate away, then pulling it back and eating some more. Every part of his body that wasn't involved in that alternating rhythm was vibrating with nervous energy.

Lister slurped his soup awkwardly with his injured left arm. "What's wrong, man?" Lister asked around a mouthful of soup cracker.

Rimmer shook his head.

"No, really. I want to know." Lister squeezed Rimmer's arm.

Rimmer chewed and swallowed another hunk of rare steak. "I don't remember."

"Really? Or are you hiding something?"

"Hi," Kochanski muttered as she slipped her tray onto the table and sat down beside Lister. She shielded herself with her hand and stared down at her food, looking like she was trying to burn a hole in her cranberry muffin by force of will.

"Are you okay, Kris?" Lister asked. For a moment, when she looked up, Lister saw her behind a white veil. Lister blinked the feel of _that dream_ away.

"Oh… Oh, yeah."

"I'm gonna go get a glass of madras sauce." Lister stood. "Could you keep hold of him?" He nodded at Rimmer.

"What?" Kochanski choked on her milk.

"Um," Lister began. "Well, I've been trying to keep hold of him. You know, like this?" Lister demonstrated by grabbing Rimmer's arm. Rimmer flared his nostrils in disgust.

"Why?" Kochanski managed between coughs.

"He's been acting a bit… strange, Kris. It'd just be peace o' mind for me if you'd make sure he didn't bolt."

"By holding his _hand_?"

"Er… is it that much trouble?" Lister grimaced. "I mean it wouldn't be for long. Just till I get me drink."

"Yeah, Kochanski. How much trouble could it be?" Rimmer offered her a shark's grin. "I don't bite."

Kochanski opened her mouth to say something, then thought better of it.

"Please?" Lister grabbed her shoulder.

She didn't answer, just slipped over the bench to Rimmer's side and caught his wrist in her hand without looking at him.

"Thanks! Weight off me mind!" Lister turned and walked the few meters to the food dispenser. As his glass filled with cool madras sauce, the mess door slid open. Lister glanced over, bringing his glass to his lips.

Sergeant Briggs stepped though the door.

Lister's former commander said nothing. He just stared at Lister, who stared back. "Er, sir?" Lister offered after a moment.

Briggs grimaced and stepped forward to the dispenser. "Don't call me sir. You outrank me. And I haven't been knighted by royalty."

"Oh. Right." Lister bit his lip. "Sorry about that, s—er… I mean sorry about that."

Briggs tapped in his code. Lister walked back to Kochanski and Rimmer, sipping his madras sauce nervously. He slid onto the bench opposite them. Kochanski cleared her throat and inclined her head at Rimmer. Lister shook his head. What did she want? She pointed to her hand, still cupped over Rimmer's wrist. "Relieve me. Now."

Lister shrugged. "What does it matter, Kris? He's not going to do anything to you."

"Yeah. I'm not going to do anything to you." Rimmer winked at Kochanski.

She turned away in disgust. Lister snorted.

Briggs walked up to their table. "May I have a seat, sir?" he asked Rimmer.

Rimmer grinned. "What was that?"

"May I sit down, _sir_?" Briggs repeated, eyes narrowed.

Rimmer cupped his ear. "One more time - there's just a bit of background noise drowning you out."

Briggs glanced around the empty, silent mess hall. "Please, may I sit down, sir." The muscles of his cheek twisted under his skin.

"I almost got it that time—"

"Rimmer!" Lister snapped, kicking at him under the table. "Sit down," he added.

Sergeant Briggs sat. Rimmer smirked at him, eating up his discomfort.

"Did you have something to say, Briggs?" Lister asked.

"Yes. I wanted to tell you that I know it's entirely Ackerman's doing, you being promoted over me. I'm not going to hold it against you and I'm going to make sure my men don't either."

Some part of Lister, some muscle he didn't realize he'd been tensing deep inside his body, relaxed.

"I want you to follow my instructions to the letter."

"What?" Rimmer sneered. "Who's in charge here? I'm not about to follow the orders of—"

Lister lunged over the table and shoved his hand over Rimmer's mouth. "Excuse us a moment." He smiled at Briggs and motioned for the man to leave the table. Briggs did, standing at a respectful distance, not watching them.

Lister leaned over to Rimmer. "I don't know which you you are right now, but I want you all to listen up. Briggs is bein' reasonable. He could _easily_ not be reasonable, and we'd end up havin' a little friendly fire accident. So before you piss him off further, think about how long you want to survive down there." Lister eyed Rimmer meaningfully as he lowered his hand; he then stood and walked over to Briggs.

"Don't mind him, s… er… Don't mind him. He's a bit out of it." Lister circled his finger around his temple to indicate Rimmer's mental state.

"Right," said Briggs, unconvinced.

"I'll keep him in check, yeah? Don't worry about that."

"Do that."

(ooo)

Rimmer panted, straining against the wall of the tight, dark space. Kochanski tried arcing into his thrusts, but the movement of his hips had become erratic. She let go of the side wall and grabbed up for his shoulder to get some control. Instead the automatic vacuum she was sitting on skidded, and she smacked the back of her head into a rack of mops. The motion dislodged one and it slid into her face. "Arnold!" she gasped.

He just re-positioned himself and continued.

She spat out mop fibers, torn between the disgusting taste in her mouth, the filthiness of it all, and the warm glow rapidly spreading through her pelvis.

Now that her back was hard against the wall, she didn't need her hands to help hold her up; she slid them down Rimmer's back, feeling the tenseness of his muscles.

Some part of her quibbled, _what am I doing?_

She hissed as Rimmer caught the small of her back and angled her slightly, hitting another achingly sweet note deep inside her. The room was getting hot; she was sweating all over. She wondered if it was proper etiquette to kiss the unctuous bastard one found unbearably attractive as he took one roughly in a supplies closet. She wanted to, and that quibbly part of her mind noted that _that_ was probably a bad sign.

As if reading her mind, Rimmer's mouth moved over Kochanski's, and his cool tongue slid between her lips. She tasted Baxter's moonshine. She could tell from the signature sharp, chlorine stink. Kochanski grabbed Rimmer's head and jerked him closer. Their teeth slammed together. She winced, but kept on grinding against him, feeling the warm glow tighten and tighten.

The motion of his hips was still erratic and rough. "Arnold—" she squeaked.

He slapped her.

Kochanski was stunned. He'd hit her! She was about to scramble away from him when she felt his hand slip between them and his fingers do something rather ingenious. The glow exploded and she rocked against him, riding through a series of bright bursts.

He came in complete silence a few thrusts after her and leaned over her, panting.

"You hit me," she said, affronted.

He didn't respond, tucking himself back into his smock and brushing off charcoal dust. It had leaked from one of the chemical spill containment satchels. He stood up and barked his head on the shelf above them. "Smeg!" he hissed, and stumbled into the door.

It spilled open, releasing Rimmer into the hallway beyond. Kochanski scrambled to fix her smock in the sudden light.

"Rimmer?" Someone out of sight called.

Lister. Kochanski felt her world twist at the edges.

Rimmer turned around, still half crouched, his hand against his head. To her relief, he caught the door and closed it.

Kochanski was thrust into darkness. She continued scrabbling back into her smock.

"How are you feelin', Rimmer?" Lister.

"Ah… oh… okay," Rimmer stammered. Wow, thought Kochanski - he was still human after all. She carefully pulled her undershirt on, trying not to knock anything over.

"That's good, yeah! I was really worried about you." Lister again.

"My nostril hairs are doin' a tango. Something just happened here…" The Cat. Kochanski's stomach clenched. "Did you just—"

"Masturbate! Yes, that's right, I was wringing the ol' weasel." Rimmer laughed, his voice nearly falsetto.

Lister chuckled. "In a cleaning supplies closet?"

"I like the smell of pine fresh. Is that a crime?"

"Get a bucket! I'm going to be sick!" Cat's fingers scrabbled against the closet door.

Kochanski held her breath.

"No!" Rimmer screeched. Kochanski heard a thump.

"Get out of my way, unless you want regurgitated salmon detailing all over your shirt, buddy!"

"You can't go in there! It's… it's a mess!"

"It's going to be a mess out here unless you let me through!" Cat wailed.

"Come on, Cat, there's a bathroom down the hall. Leave Rimmer to his closet." Lister.

Their footsteps retreated. Kochanski let her breath go.

"Wait! I forgot!" Lister again.

Kochanski nearly bit her tongue through as she heard the man pad back. "Kryten told me to get a chemical spill satchel. The coolant conduit's leaking all over his and Kris's quarters. It's already eaten half way through Bloopy Bear—"

"WHAT?" Kochanski shrieked, then covered her mouth in horror.

Silence. And then more silence.

"Who's in there?" Lister asked.

"No one. Nothing." Rimmer laughed. "Probably a pipe."

Kochanski flattened herself against the back of the closet, trying to bury into the metal bulkhead. Outside, she heard a series of thumps and muffled shouting.

The closet door was wrenched open. Cat grinned down at her. "It's Officer Bud-Babe!"

Kochanski blinked in the brightness. Rimmer was holding Lister back and off the floor.

"Hi." Kochanski waved.

Cat sniffed deeply. "Ewww. You and… him?" He jerked his thumb towards Rimmer, then turned towards Lister with a wide grin. "Hey ape-boy! Officer Bud-babe was doin' the nasty with pubic-hair head!"

Rimmer let Lister down, defeated. Kochanski picked herself up out of the closet and pulled her smock on over her shoulders.

"Why? What?" Lister gaped, moving towards her.

Rimmer caught her eye, then dropped it, staring fixedly down at the floor. The Cat draped his arm over Rimmer's shoulder. "You have to tell me your secret, bud. I always thought you had all the charm and sophistication of a rectal thermometer, but now—"

"Shut up, Cat." Lister grimaced. "You two…?"

Kochanski couldn't take it any more. "Yes! We _did_."

Rimmer was silent.

"So this is what you meant…?" Lister looked at Rimmer and waved at Kochanski. "You fucked _her_?"

Kochanski looked from Lister to Rimmer. Rimmer was immobile, still staring at the floor.

"And you." Lister rounded on Kochanski. "You _said_ you were staying faithful to me. I mean, your _me_. Your _Dave._ You said that… and then you have sex with _him_. Over _me_." Lister threw his hands up in the air. He turned to Rimmer. "Why? Are you doing this to get back at me for somethin'? The mind patch? What?"

"Did you ever consider that I had sex with her because I _wanted_ to?"

"_You_ had sex with _her_? The woman you called a stuck-up, frigid bitch?"

"WHAT?" Kochanski thrust her hands on her hips, glaring at Rimmer.

Lister jammed his finger into Rimmer's chest. "Yeh've always hated her and yeh know it. The only reason yeh did this was to get back at me. And yeh won't even tell me _why_ yer so upset."

Rimmer laughed. "Once again, everything revolves around Listy."

"You know what? Screw this, mate." Lister shoved Rimmer. "Jump over the goited railing. See if I care."

"What?" Kochanski blinked.

Rimmer backhanded Lister. Lister staggered, looking up at Rimmer through his fingers. Rimmer advanced. "You smegging git. You made me think you were my friend and then you butchered my camphor wood chest. You knew how much that chest meant to me—"

"What?" Lister squeaked.

"I waited for you. You left me and I waited for you. A year I watched you obsess over _her_ and I waited. I waited for you to_acknowledge_—"

"You're mixing everything up! I didn't leave you, you left _me_."

"You wanted me to leave." Rimmer replied, darkly.

"Listen to yerself!" Lister brought his hands up to his face. "Yer makin' no sense. You say I left, then you say I wanted _you_ to leave. The camphor wood chest I remember, you've got me there." Lister waved his hands. "Look. I told yeh before, I love Kris, yeah? Yeh can't hold that against me." He pointed at Kochanski.

Kochanski pushed between them, standing square to Dave. "I want you to stop."

"Stop_what_?" Lister looked back at her, affronted.

"I want you to stop being _fixated_ on me."

"I've had these dreams. We're getting married and—"

Kochanski held up her hands. "Just stop. Please? I don't want to hear it anymore." She glanced from Lister to Rimmer. "There's obviously something going on between you two—"

Lister coughed or choked or laughed. _Some_ sort of ugly, repetitive sound. "I'm not…" Lister turned to Rimmer, urging him to speak. "Tell her!"

Rimmer looked stricken. He stepped back and ran.

Lister followed him a few steps. "Wait! Stop!" He stopped and turned back to Kochanski. "Look, there isn't. It's absurd. I'm_straight_, I—"

"Stop." Kochanski backed away. "I need you to stop this Dave. I need you to _stop_."

"Kris! I—"

Kochanski narrowed her eyes. "Stop it."

"Hey! Don't you dare! Don't you _dare_ make me the bad guy, here! I found you and _him_," he jerked his thumb in the direction of Rimmer's hasty retreat, "doin' the horizontal mambo. I think that makes _me_ the injured party!"

Kochanski shook her head, her lips pressed tight together. She turned and walked away.

Lister called after her, "Don't walk away like I'm the one in the wrong. Get back here! I'm still furious at you!"

Kochanski rolled her eyes and kept walking. The nerve. Besides, Bloopy Bear_needed_ her.

(ooo)

Rimmer sat on Lister's bunk. He was jittery. The argument had soaked him with adrenaline, and _that_ had started up the itch. His legs vibrated as he clutched at his head to stop it from flying off his body. He knew he wouldn't be able to maintain. Pretty soon he'd be dangling off the railing again, and then… The thought terrified him, and that made the itch scream even louder, which terrified him even more, which made the itch stronger…

Smeg.

He stood and walked to the door. Then he walked to the elevator. Each step sent little flutters of itch through his body, making his movements jerky and uncertain.

The elevator started to hiss open. Rimmer slipped in sideways before it had opened all the way.

He pulled himself up short when he saw who was inside.

Ackerman.

"Sir." Rimmer bit the inside of his cheek.

"Mr. Rimmer." Ackerman replied. "How is life as a convict NCO?" Ackerman grinned, showing entirely too many teeth. The grin didn't reach his eyes. They stayed sharp and accusing.

Rimmer started to sweat. He could never tell if he'd _done_ something to warrant Ackerman's accusing glare, or if it was just Ackerman's natural expression. "Er. Can't complain, sir. Can't complain." Rimmer turned to the elevator pad and punched in the number for the NCO L-facs floor.

"Ah, getting in a spot of exercise?" Ackerman loomed closer, crowding Rimmer.

"Er," said Rimmer, inching away. "Yeah. I have some nerves I need to work off, sir."

"I've heard that you've been spending a lot of time in the gym and in the range." Ackerman nodded. "Getting ready for your first drop as an NCO?" Ackerman inclined his head towards the floor. "Word is, you'll be going to the StarTransit™ hub. Your first command is a very important mission. Very important." Without a touch of irony, Ackerman added, "Assisting our valiant Captain."

Rimmer choked, then coughed.

Ackerman thumped him on the back. "Bit of a chest cold?"

"You could say that." Rimmer gasped.

"I'm going down to the gym as well."

"Ah."

"Perhaps we can spar together. I've heard you're quite the fighter. Strong, fast, agile."

Ackerman eyed him.

Rimmer's skin crawled. "Er."

"Come now," Ackerman threaded his fingers together and flexed his arms, cracking his knuckles. "You won't need to go easy on me."

"That isn't what concerns me, sir."

The elevator doors slid open. Ackerman sashayed through. Rimmer followed after a pause.

As they walked to the gym, Rimmer tried to think of excuses. Something that would make sense. A sprained jaw. A dislocated toe. Space mumps.

The itch coiled between his shoulder blades, waiting. Rimmer settled on telling Ackerman he'd just contracted instantaneous interstellar flu and his intestines felt like over-inflated inner tubes.

Ackerman slid open the doors to the hand-to-hand combat training gym. Rimmer thought the padded walls and floor must make Ackerman feel right at home. "Sir, I—" he began.

Ackerman brought up his hand with a flourish. "I can handle myself. And if you say another word to the contrary, I'll demote you back to convict and put you on sewer duty." He pulled off his boots, then slipped out of his uniform smock and folded it very neatly into a square. Underneath he wore a thin white undershirt and boxers.

Rimmer did a double take over the boxers. They'd been embroidered with little pink kitty-cats. He shook his head and knelt to unlace his boots.

As Rimmer slowly unwound his laces, Ackerman bounced from one foot to the other and flicked his hands. "Bare fisted?" he asked as Rimmer stripped his smock.

"Gloves, please, sir." Rimmer scratched at his chest hard enough to sting his skin. A pair of leather gloves, padded over the knuckles but leaving the fingers free, slapped down on the matt beside Rimmer. He sighed and pulled them on. As soon as the nanofabric had sealed itself around his wrists, Ackerman's fist slammed into his jaw and he fell sprawling.

"What the smeg?" Rimmer sputtered.

"The game is afoot!" Ackerman grinned. "Get up."

Rimmer didn't get up. Instead he sat, one knee folded against the floor, the other folded up into his chest. He leaned his arm over that knee and watched Ackerman dance.

Ackerman snorted and dove in for a left cross.

Rimmer caught the Warden's arm and fell back; his foot rammed against the man's hip as he rolled and swung the Warden over his head. Twisting, Rimmer landed on top, mounted on Ackerman's side.

"Tricksie," Ackerman gasped.

Rimmer said nothing, the itch rippled through him. It was telling him how much it loved this, loved the feel of the fear coursing through him, loved how unpredictable Ackerman was, loved the threat of potential pain.

Ackerman wasn't done yet. The man bucked Rimmer up and drew his knees between them, catching Rimmer's hips and pushing them away. Just as quick Ackerman pulled back and got his feet under him.

_Doesn't like ground_, Rimmer thought as he followed the man up. _He'll give me a better fight on his feet_.

Rimmer kept his hands close to his face as they circled. The Warden didn't waste time; he was on Rimmer in a flash with a flurry of jabs and then a kick. Rimmer blocked successfully, but the Warden swept his knee into Rimmer's kidneys.

_Fast_, Rimmer thought as the pain thrilled through him. The itch flared. Rimmer slammed his fist past Ackerman's guard, right into the man's gloating face. Ackerman staggered back, his eyes growing dark with fury.

The Warden started to strip off his gloves.

Rimmer watched him. "Sir?" He dropped his hands.

Ackerman slammed into him, scoring a stinging right cross and an uppercut. Rimmer's mouth filled with blood. He spat it out and kicked at Ackerman to make distance. In that space, Rimmer tore off his own gloves. The itch was overwhelming. He felt his perception shift. He was in pain, he was frightened, yes, but it felt _good_. It felt like Risk and Hammond organ music and Morris dancing all rolled into one. He wanted more.

Rimmer barreled into Ackerman, his elbow hitting the man's jaw squarely. With barely a pause, Ackerman kneed him in the kidneys again.

They broke apart. Sweat slicked Rimmer's pits and the back of his knees.

Rimmer was the first to see an opening, and he set upon Ackerman. The itch was swallowing his mind, turning his world into a blur of blood and sweat, the ache of punches connecting and received like a throbbing rhythm. He didn't know exactly when he and Ackerman fell to their knees, dripping blood onto the mat, still shoving and grunting and hitting. He did know the moment that Ackerman slid his hand down Rimmer's chest in a way that was entirely _not_ combative, because it made his hair stand on end, and everything came into sharp focus.

He caught the back of Ackerman's head and pulled him into a kiss. The Warden snarled, biting hard on Rimmer's lip and yanking out of his grip, spitting blood into his face.

For a brief moment Rimmer _saw_ Ackerman, the Warden hissing like some feral thing, and realized his own humanity was just as tenuous. The moment passed and Rimmer cuffed Ackerman, _hard,_ for biting his lip. The Warden whimpered. Rimmer boxed his ears and caught one of his hands, shoving it against his own crotch.Ackerman caught on, pulling Rimmer's erection out of his thin boxers and digging in with his nails.

Rimmer bit Ackerman on the shoulder, his own hands scrabbling to find the Warden's errection. They leaned into each other, straining and pulsing like an exposed organ. Rimmer drank in Ackerman's stink. Acrid, ugly, tarry, bloody, and absurdly minty.

Rimmer climaxed quickly, his come splattering against the mat to join the spit and sweat and blood. As he knelt and watched the disgusting soup congeal, he thought briefly about the poor sod who would have to clean it up in the morning.


	8. Hollister

Red Dwarf Fanfic: Last Humans

Chapter 7: Hollister

Summary: Wherein Hollister is intimidated, Rimmer is manipulative and Holly offers a clue.

Warnings: None

Beta: Roadstergal, Zekass, Rack

Chapter Rating: T(PG-13)

(ooo)

Hollister

(ooo)

//Ship Serial No: Red Dwarf JMC66350

//Ship's Time: 07:22-06.02-002.343

//AI-Holly-Executive: SENT CANARY TEAM DOWN AKA 'SNAKE EATERS' TO STARTRANSIT HUB™

//AI-Holly-Executive: STARTRANSIT HUB™ INSISTS ON FOLLOWING 3 MILLION YEAR OLD PROTOCOL

//AI-Holly-Executive: STARTRANSIT HUB™.MASSIVE GIT

"Warden Ackerman. Acting Deputy Harlen." Captain Hollister acknowledged each man in turn with a nod then paused to lean back in his favorite leather chair - the one with the really good lumbar support.

"Captain, Sir." Ackerman saluted with sinuous grace, poised like a black, slippery predator. One that really liked hunting at night, preferably during a lunar eclipse, and had a taste for human flesh. The image was not helped in the least by the swollen discoloration down one side of his face and around his good eye. The man had been in a fight. No doubt beating a seditious prisoner into submission.

Hollister blanched as he shuffled the papers in his hands. Ackerman scared him. Scared the ever living bejesus out of him, in fact. And the fear was only compounded by the insanity of this particular critical juncture in Hollister's career. This gosh-damn bizarre critical juncture. This critical juncture where he woke up and found himself three million years away from JMC rubber stamping and three million light years away from JMC bureaucracy, the two forces that had kept him in charge of Red Dwarf for twenty years. A critical juncture that stubbornly refused to be a dream or a hallucination or a horribly tasteless virtual reality joke.

A critical juncture that left him leaning on Ackerman like a drunk man on dollarpound whore.

He needed the Canaries to figure out what the hell was going on. And that meant he needed Ackerman in a way he never had before.

Hollister didn't like the feeling that there were two people in effective command now. Or the contrast between him and Ackerman. Ackerman with his hardened convicts, tempered by war and decades in the slam and Hollister, with his filing cabinets and pasty engineers.

Although Hollister's was an impressive filing cabinet. A walk-in with those little rotating dollies with the clips - the ones that were so useful for filing paperwork for ignorable issues, while giving the appearance of attending to them.

Luckily Ackerman had all the ambition of a rhododendron bush, although that did nothing to ease Hollister's paranoia. Even if the weasel down one's trousers has no ambition to bite, it's still an unsettling experience.

Hollister took a slow breath and dropped his papers, forcing his mind back to the present and away from comforting thoughts of his filing cabinet and uncomforting thoughts of Ackerman down his trousers. He gazed at the Warden and Deputy down the bridge of his nose. His life-coach had told him that the gesture inspired a sense of authority. It always gave Hollister eye strain. He squeezed his temples, sinuses stinging, and folded forward in his chair. Trying to maintain aloof dignity, he squinted at Ackerman and Harlen from a half-crouch over his desk. Hollister hoped he didn't look like a constipated possum. Confidence. Confidence. Fake it till you make it. "I hear you've appointed a new Second Lieutenant in charge of the Canaries' Third Company."

Ackerman twitched, then fluttered into another looming pose. Harlen shifted, his expression blank.

Hollister hesitated, choosing his words very carefully and staring in an intent and commanding manner at Harlen. Ackerman was too intimidating to look at - although, to be sure, Harlen was not significantly better. The man was quiet and stolid and watchful, and Hollister knew that Harlen knew things. Oh yes, he did. The bastard. "I understand that you appointed Second Technician Arnold Rimmer to Second Lieutenant." Hollister tapped his fingers on the desk, then stopped when Ackerman glared at them. "Making him the highest ranking Convict on board," he concluded, hastily.

"Sir," Ackerman began, then trailed off into an awkward silence, mouth agape and eyes squinting in confusion.

Hollister raised an eyebrow.

Harlen jumped in. "Sir, I think what the Warden is trying to tell you is that Mister Rimmer has been showin' remarkable competency in combat. The Warden feels the man deserved a chance to prove 'imself as a Canary NCO."

Ackerman coughed and closed his mouth.

Harlen watched him, then turned back to Hollister. "Warden Ackerman would also like to add that he has currently no staff who are willin' to volunteer to lead cons into suicide missions."

"Surely you could have found someone else. For instance, someone who isn't the most incompetent man aboard." Hollister placed a finger against his lips. "Technically, Third Technician Lister is the most incompetent man aboard, of course, but that's only because he isn't even trying to be competent. Mister Rimmer tries to be competent, Ackerman. Oh, how he tries."

"Er. Sir." Harlan ran his fingers over his debriefing booklet. "Mister Lister was appointed Staff Sergeant of Third Company."

Hollister looked at Harlen, his face blank. He'd run out of expressions. "Okay," he said, limply. "Is there... So..." He closed his mouth and spent a moment gathering his thoughts. "Are you absolutely sure about this, Ackerman?"

Harlan shook his head as Ackerman found his voice, "Yes, sir."

Hollister arched back in his chair, settling his fingers on the bulge of his stomach. He thought about reminding Ackerman about the innumerable times Second Technician Rimmer and Third Technician Lister had played nasty practical jokes on the man, but concluded it would be an exercise in futility. Ackerman had all the memory of decorative aquarium rock. "Well... All right then." He stared at a point on his office wall just above Ackerman's head and leaned forward into another long, awkward pause.

Harlan broke it. "Sir, our debriefing...?"

"Yes." Hollister nodded. "I received your written updates on the Homeward project. Just run through the highlights with me."

"Sir." Harlen nodded. "The Snake Eaters' last dive confirmed the location of the StarTransit™ hub. It's ten fathoms below the ocean planet's surface. We tried to handshake with the StarTransit™ AI. Nigel had no luck hackin' it and it refused to acknowledge us—"

Hollister waved him silent and leaned forward onto his desk, a hand pressed against his temple. After a moment he opened a drawer in his desk and brought out a box. The cover proclaimed in blood red, spiky letters: "SPANISH INQUISITION! Wholesome family fun! Now with bonus thumbscrews!" He offered the box to Harlan, who looked at blankly.

Hollister inclined his head towards Ackerman. The Acting Deputy turned and glanced at his superior then back at Hollister. Hollister rolled his hands in irritation. 'Give it to him', he pantomimed.

Harlan turned and offered the box.

As soon as he caught sight of it, Ackerman's face split into a toothy grin. He pressed his hands to his cheeks. "You shouldn't have, Captain!"

Hollister shivered, then plastered on a smile and clapped his hands. "No need for you to waste your time with the rest of the debriefing, Warden. Go into my receiving room and enjoy yourself."

Ackerman snatched up the box and half ran towards the door. Then he turned; a slick, visceral grin slid over his features. "Don't think you're getting away with anything, Captain, Sir. I know what this is about!"

Hollister quivered. Harlan looked back at Ackerman in surprise. Without another word, the Warden disappeared.

The Captain swallowed. Did Ackerman actually know something, or was it just another half-insane notion?

He waved Harlen forward. Harlen stepped towards the Captain's desk. Hollister waved him closer. Harlen turned back to Hollister and leaned over the desk until he was inches from Hollister's face.

"We are three million light years into deep space. The one piece of cryptic future-technology we've come across that can give us any hope of getting back to Europa for our July 5th, 2343 cargo drop is the StarTransit™ hub. And you're telling me it's refusing to respond to us?"

"Sir, we're 3 million years in the future. How-"

Hollister shushed him, waving the acting Deputy closer. Harlen had to balance on his palms to tip himself further towards Hollister. Now they were millimeters apart. "That hasn't been confirmed or denied, officially."

"But Todhunter—"

"Yes! I know! He extrapolated it from the star-charts." Hollister blew out a breath explosively, furious that Todhunter had the nerve to be a competent astronavigation officer. "But it still hasn't been confirmed or denied. And until it has, there will be no more talk of it."

"Yes, sir. And, yes, sir. The StarTransit™ hub refuses to respond to us."

"Has it said _why_ it's refusing to respond?"

"Well, sir..." Harlen pulled back. "The StarTransit™ AI is insisting on speakin' with Red Dwarf's Captain in th' flesh. It's scanned our manifest and got your endocrine signature. It wants _you_ to come down. Apparently it's part of some protocol for authorizing transit requests. In the absence of a ranking _Space Corps_ officer, that is."

Hollister's stomach sank. "In person? Can't Holly control it wirelessly from up here?"

Harlen shook his head. "After we put in our report, Todhunter had a go. Holly can barely shake hands with 24th century technology." Harlen placed his hands behind his back, rocking a bit as he thought.

"So what are you telling me, Deputy? I've got to go down?"

Harlen shuffled. "Yes, sir."

Hollister's mind started babbling nonsense about pancakes and water wings. He wanted to ask, 'Can't someone pretend to be me?' but he didn't dare. His position had always been as tenuous as a paper airplane flying through hell; he _couldn't_ open himself up to being replaced. He pressed his fingers to his temples. His mouth continued on autopilot. "How soon?"

"There's a sort of storm right now, sir, centered around the StarTransit™ Complex.

It's a sort of geothermic upset that's creatin' pretty powerful currents.' Harlan looked up at the ceiling. "Could crush a Midget like a pie-plate."

Hollister's inner monolog jumped an octave and added speculations on the electrical conductivity of 19th century diving bells to its babblings. "Then when?"

"Best guess, sir? Three days for the storm to die down, another four to make sure it's safe..."

"Right." Hollister's fingers slipped against his lips. He had the strong desire to gibber. Instead he forced his hands to his desk. "Dismissed, Harlen."

"Sir—?" Harlen started.

"That's all I need, Harlen. I'll be getting in contact with you and Ackerman as soon as I've consulted with my senior staff." That sounded wonderfully authoritative. The small part of Hollister that wasn't gibbering had to pause to admire itself.

"Yes, sir." Harlen saluted and left.

Hollister listened to him gather up Ackerman, listened to him cajole the Warden into giving up his plaything, then listened to them exit his receiving room. All the while Hollister kept up an alert, attentive posture and wrote 'I am a fish' over and over on his touch pad.

After they left and he had waited a few minutes to make sure they really had left and weren't coming back, Hollister melted onto his desk.

For a moment he lay there, wondering if he were in hell. Then he realized hell was probably ten fathoms below the ocean surface of a frigid world in a wreck that could collapse at any second.

He was just in purgatory, waiting to go to hell.

His door chimed out classic little dicky-dee jingle that usually made his day feel a bit brighter. Instead it sounded like a death knell.

He hit his intercom. "Hollister here."

"It's Todhunter, sir."

"Yes." Hollister picked himself up and arranged his features into a careful mask of indifference.

Todhunter folded himself into the room and stood in front of Hollister's desk in one long stride. Hollister blinked up at the tall and competent man before him. Not for the first time, he wondered how Todhunter had ended up on his ship of fools.

"Todhunter, reporting as ordered, sir." Todhunter saluted and dropped a file as thick as an atlas on Hollister's desk. "The R&D department's Homeward brief, sir."

"Hmm," said Hollister. "So what have they found out?"

Todhunter opened the file, turning it so Hollister could see it the right way up. He pointed to a passage. "Dave Lister's psychotropic confession indicates that Red Dwarf was destroyed some time between him entering the stasis chamber in April twenty-three thirty four and exiting it September twenty-three thirty-five. However the Red Dwarf chronometer indicates we found ourselves in deep space April 27th, twenty-three forty-two."

Hollister leaned back in his chair. "Go on."

Todhunter opened the file to another section. "The R&D department and I decided to locate and analyze _other_ time anomalies that have been cropping up aboard. We currently have thirty-six people under house arrest for various infractions ranging from stow-away to plotting mutiny. The R&D department interviewed all of them. Twenty-eight are convinced that the date is sometime in twenty-three-forty-six. These are the ones who were written up and placed under house arrest—the 'ringleader' was imprisoned on flour Thirteen— for mutiny after they mentioned your 'alleged' dishonorable discharge from duty. Quoting from one of their statements—" Todhunter brought up the binder. "'Hollister was indited on multiple counts of malicious misuse of authority, one count of manslaughter and five counts of conspiracy due to his involvement in the accidental death of a crewman, serial number 02304—"

"Enough, Mister Todhunter." Hollister warned. "Their statements were meaningless. They were mutinous. They would have done anything to justify their illegal activities."

"They came from the _past_. Or… our future in the past, sir." Todhunter added, quickly. "Not that _that_ future past is our current future, sir. Anyway, I find it interesting that the date of the alleged accident is the day _after_ we found ourselves in deep space."

"Just continue relaying the report, Mister Todhunter."

"The R&D department went ahead and took a random sample from the group of mutineers and tested their endocrine signatures against the ones we have on file." Todhunter flipped to another page. "Every one of them has aged approximately five to six years, depending on the date of their most recent scan. They should have aged one to two. They aren't lying sir. At least not about the date."

Hollister eyed the calculations, his eyes going glassy.

"Then there are four crew who believe that the date is actually around twenty-three-seventy. And four individuals who think they're in the twenty-fourth century. All of them placed under house arrest when they showed up for work without being registered crew." Todhunter pointed out the names. "By the way, sir, early in the 24th century Red Dwarf was overhauled to its original specifications. The incarcerated crew confirm this."

"What about Dave Lister's testimony on the nanobot resurrection?"

"I'm not sure what to make of it, sir. Perhaps the nanobots made a series of temporal mistakes, resurrecting people from different time eras? I don't know." Todhunter shrugged. "To be honest, his explanation of a catastrophic engine failure that wiped out the entire crew followed by a resurrection, 3 million years later, of most of the crew and Red Dwarf… It's true as far as _he_ knows, but it doesn't fit the facts."

"Indeed, Mister Todhunter." Hollister brightened. "I recall Lister precipitating a massive quarantine scare after exiting stasis, spending the rest of his tour under house arrest, being summilarily discharged of duty and, to my everlasting relief, deposited on Earth at the O'Hare space port during our routine stop over." Hollister snorted. "Imagine my delight when I found out he had not only managed to sneak back on board years later but steal and wreck _more_ JMC property." He rubbed his temple. "Ever since he came aboard Red Dwarf, he's been a Pandora's box of crap."

"The Starbug he was piloting wasn't part of our manifest, sir." Todhunter winced. "And because he isn't crew, the charge you held him on—"

"What of it?" Hollister cocked an eyebrow, loaded to shoot.

Todhunter held his gaze. "I misspoke, sir."

Hollister tapped his chin. "So we _were_ ressurrected but not after an accident that wiped out the crew. Unless the accident happened_after_ Lister was discharged."

Todhunter shook his head. "No, sir. That wouldn't account for the Red Dwarf crew from the twenty-_fourth_ century. According to them, there was no large scale disaster in the history of Red Dwarf's operation up to the date _they_ served on Red Dwarf, which was long after we must have… retired."

"So it's likely that a version of all of us lived our lives way back then and died of natural causes?" Hollister gagged a bit at the thought.

Todhunter shuddered. "An eerie thought, sir."

"If that's true, how do we get home?"

Hollister's First Officer glanced at his feet, he looked like he was marshaling himself against some of inner conflict.

_He's against me. He's one of the mutineers… _Hollister gripped his table top.

Todhunter looked up. His eyes gleamed with unshed _tears. _

"I'm guessing we don't, sir." Todhunter said finally.

_I'm__never going to see Martha again_. Hollister forced the thought away as nonsense. He would get to that Europa drop. He had to. "Don't you have any theories?"

Todhunter leaned onto Hollister's desk. "None. But sir... the original Red Dwarf would have had an original Holly. If we could recover him, we might learn more about what happened to the original Red Dwarf."

Hollister slapped his hand down. "An excellent suggestion, Mister Todhunter."

"Shall I tell Warden Ackerman to search Mister Lister's cell?"

Hollister went pale. "Oh."

"What's wrong sir?" Todhunter half turned. "Did you want me to get another tube of your... special ointment from Medical Bay?"

"Mister Lister is a convict NCO, now." Hollister grimaced. "He has the same search and seizure rights as a crew member."

"I didn't know that, sir." Todhunter chuckled wanly.

Hollister straightened decisively in his chair. "Go get Mister Lister, Mister Todhunter. We'll get Ackerman to search his quarters while he's gone."

"Sir? Do you think that's wise? I mean, if we start treating the Canaries badly, I mean more badly then usual—"

"No one needs to know about this." Hollister eyed Todhunter meaningfully. "Now go. I want the original Holly."

"Yes sir," Todhunter saluted and turned for the door. Then he paused and half-turned back. "One more thing, sir."

"Yes?"

"Doctor Valley put in a report to my office about a convict whose endocrine signature has changed significantly." Todhunter shrugged his shoulders, "I wouldn't bring something so trivial to your attention, sir, but things being what they—"

"Who is it?"

"Second Technician Rimmer, sir. Valley says he... he shows all the signs of a mind patch. But there is no one aboard who matches the personality algorithm except for Mister Rimmer himself. Valley says it's almost like Rimmer patched a second copy of himself into his own mind." Todhunter laughed, "Why he'd do something like that, I have no idea. Being a git is bad enough, but being a git squared, sir?"

Hollister didn't realize he was gaping at Todhunter—slackjawed—till the man cleared his throat and inclined his head in concern.

It had been a long time since Hollister had felt—what? Hope? A smile stretched itself out on his lips like a lazy cat on a sun drenched windowsil. He gleamed up at Todhunter, who stared back, baffled.

"That's the best bit of news I've heard in a long time. Bring Mister Rimmer along with Mister Lister. Dismissed, Mister Todhunter."

Todhunter saluted and turned smartly, walking out in one stride.

(ooo)

"I couldn't figure out what happened to Ace Rimmer." Hollister leaned back in his chair. He knew he looked smug as he grinned up at Rimmer and Lister. Rimmer would save him a trip down into hell in a tin can. Hollister paused, indulging in his triumph and his relief. "I couldn't guess at the technology used to project his hologram. Not a clue. I didn't know what happened to him. For all I knew some remote projector was turned off parsecs away." Hollister shrugged. "And your psychotropic confession threw me for a loop—"

"What psychotropic confession?" Rimmer pushed past Lister.

"The one I ordered for you while you were recovering in medical bay. It returned nothing. Either you don't remember the actual patch or your mind is tight as Fort Knox." Hollister waved his hand. "Either way, irrelevant. The melted Remote Brainwave Simulator. The altered Endocrine signature. The sudden competency… Commander Ace Rimmer never left Red Dwarf. He's in _you, _Mister Rimmer."

Lister snorted. "Naw. No way. It's impossible. Yeh'd have to be insane to do a mind patch, everyone knows that—"

"Mad, yes." Hollister grinned. "Or desperate. Regardless." His grin widened. "I upheld my end of the bargin, Commander. It's time you upheld yours. The last time I checked, which was just a few minutes before you arrived, the penalty for an illegal mind patch is 20 years in the brig." Hollister gave his stamp dolly a triumphant spin. "I suggest you get that damn StartransitHub™ to take us back to Europa. I've waited long enough."

Rimmer stared at him a few moments, then started to clap. Slow and mocking. "Congratulations, Captain Hollister. You figured it out."

"What did you hope to gain from this stunt, Ace?"

"Survival."

Lister glanced at Rimmer, confused.

"So you forced yourself on... yourself to save yourself." Hollister rubbed his chin in thought.

"Mister Rimmer isn't dead. We've become the same person."

"Right." Hollister waved his hand. The mechanics didn't matter. What mattered was that he had won. He wouldn't have to go down to the planet's ocean surface. He wouldn't have to dive down thousands of fathoms into a freezing abyss. Or board a derelic with questionable hull integrity. He turned to Lister. "Now, Mister Lister. You have a piece of equipment from the former Red Dwarf, correct? A certain AI named Holly?"

Lister gaped back at him. "Uh..."

"I suppose that's answer enough. I want him, Mister Lister. Right. Now." Hollister clapped his hands together.

"You don't have the authority." Rimmer said, his voice quiet.

"What?" Hollister stopped short.

"We're both NCOs now. The former Mister Rimmer studied the regulations regarding convict NCOs quite extensively after Mister Lister signed him up to the Canaries. I know that you don't have the authority to confiscate convict NCO personal possessions that aren't stolen or hazardous. Right now, Holly is just Lister's ludicrously over-powered personal digital assistant. Nothing more."

"But, Mister Rimmer—or whoever—I can commandeer personal effects that are needed in an emergency situation." Hollister shifted his head with a flourish. "I want him, Mister Lister."

"What do you need Holly for?" Rimmer leaned forward onto Hollister's desk.

"That's classified, Mister Rimmer."

"Captain," Rimmer began, his tone low, "JMC regulations clearly state that in the event of an emergency requiring the commandeering of crew's personal possessions, they have the right to be assured adequate compensation unless they consent to waive it due to the nature of the emergency."

"What are you getting at, Mister Rimmer?" Hollister's eyes narrowed. This _was_ a different Mister Rimmer.

"There is no model in the H-series AI ship control that costs under 100 million dollarpounds."

"Holly isn't Lister's personal possession. He is JMC property."

"Is he registered in this ship's manifest? Or any ship's manifest?"

Hollister's grin shattered, replaced by blank fury. "Mister Rimmer. This is nonsense. JMC regulations don't apply at a time like this—"

"Need I remind you, sir, that the only reason you are in command of Red Dwarf is due to JMC regulations?"

"Are you threatening me, Mister Rimmer?" Hollister drew himself up.

"No I'm not." Rimmer leaned back, an evil grin slipping over his face. "I'm not threatening you at all. If I were, I'd probably say something like 'could you get me a half dozen honey-glazed, Dennis?'"

Hollister froze.

"Now that we've established where everyone stands," Rimmer continued, "I think you owe Mister Lister either a written guarantee that JMC will reimburse him for his loss to the tune of 100 million dollar pounds, or a compelling reason why Lister should give up his personal equipment."

Hollister stared down at his desk. His hands fisted against the nest of reports and briefs. The corners of his mouth twitched. "You already know what we're trying to do, Commander. Mission Homeward. Figuring out a way back to Earth."

Lister perked up at that. "Yeah, sir! That's what I was tryin' to do, too."

Hollister looked at Lister like he was a developmentally delayed puppy humping a prosthetic foot. Lister blinked back at him, offended. Hollister grunted and went on, "Hopefully a top notch JMC R&D division will have a bit more luck then a Third Technician."

"What have you found?" Rimmer pressed.

"We're countless million miles away from earth and three million years in the future."

"Yes, I know that." Rimmer rolled his hands impatiently.

Hollister stopped and stared at them both. "This is classified information. Don't tell anyone or there'll be chaos."

"Wha'? The crew doesn't know?" Lister gaped at Hollister.

"No. They don't. They think we've had a minor course correction due to an outbreak of Venusian chickenpox on Europa."

"It's been a year." Lister squeaked.

"It's an unusually long outbreak."

"There are only..." Lister did a quick count on his fingers. "Two hundred people on Europa. And that's including the sheep."

"Enough." Rimmer flicked his hands. "Why do you want Holly?"

Hollister watched him for a moment then continued. "We want to know what happened aboard the original Red Dwarf."

"Oh," said Lister, catching on. "Yeh want to know what happened. Smeg. I never thought of asking." Lister grinned. "That's a bit of a laugh, ain't it?" He chucked Rimmer in the arm. "I never thought about asking Holly wha' happened. I mean, I just_assumed_ the whole bit with th' nuclear explosion and the whole ship being dead for three million years covered th' important points—but I suppose some mould mighta grown in a corner or summin'."

Rimmer looked at him, his lips gently sneering. Then he reached over and caught Lister's left arm, bringing up the man's wrist.

"Holly," Rimmer barked. "What do you remember of the last three million years?"

"Don't know, Arnold," Holly returned. "Large part of me memory banks been wiped. Now that I think about it, prolly was the reason I weren't feeling meself."

Rimmer let Lister's wrist fall, shrugging at Hollister. "Doesn't sound like he knows anything."

"Ask him if he knows who wiped his memory." Hollister waved at Lister's wrist.

Lister brought it up, "Holly—"

"I heard. Don't know." Holly paused in thought. "I think 'wiped out' might be a bit strong. I can't access the information. I think it's still there."

Rimmer grabbed Lister's wrist and brought Holly close to his face. "Who can access it?"

"Sorry, Arnold. I don't know." Holly blinked then his brows drew. "Wait a sec. I'm getting' a name. O… Omega-Group. O-G. Mean anythin' to you?"

Rimmer stiffened. Hollister watched him with narrowed eyes.

"Here's the deal." Rimmer leaned over Hollister's desk. "I want Kochanski and Kryten on this Homeward team. And I want exit and enter privileges for floor thirteen granted to all of us. Myself, Lister, Kochanski, Kryten and the Cat."

"You think I'm going to give you the run of the ship?"

"Yes,_Dennis_, I do."

Hollister flinched. His hands hesitated over his keyboard

"Do it."

Hollister glared at the crew information on his computer screen. He called up the relevant files and changed the access privileges. He slumped over his desk, his forehead leaning into one cupped hand. "Are you satisfied?"

"Show it to me."

Hollister turned his computer screen around and let Rimmer look. Rimmer examined it and nodded. "Now I want you to call Todhunter up and tell him."

Holister looked like he was about to be sick. "Todhunter?" He squeaked.

"Do you honestly think I trust _you_. Call him, order him to pick up Kryten and Kochanski right now."

"No." Hollister said, finally. "I'm calling Thorton to—"

"Holly? Remember we talked about you hacking the intercom?" Rimmer pulled Lister's wrist away. "How are you doing with that?"

"Just waiting on you, Arnold."

"Then transmit. 'Dennis, I'd like one maple—'" The sound of Rimmer's voice echoed in from the hallway.

Hollister's eyes bugged. "Stop." He gasped.

"Then call Todhunter." Rimmer lowered Lister's wrist.

"Yes… yes…" Hollister dialled out for the First Officer's station. "Todhunter, Hollister here."

"Yes Captain?"

"I'd like you to release Kristen Kochanski and that unregistered robot, Kryten. Put them on the Homeward team. Set them, Lister and Rimmer and that Cat creature, up with entrance/exit privileges to floor thirteen."

"Excellent, Captain. I was going to suggest—" Todhunter's voice came through brightly.

"Todhunter. Shut it and go."

"Yes, sir. I should be done within the hour. Todhunter out."

"There." Hollister slapped his hand down on his desk. "Is there anything else you want out of me? A kidney, perhaps? My right lung?"

"No, that's fine." Rimmer smiled thinly. "We'll wait for Todhunter at the lift." Without offering up one of his flamboyant salutes, Rimmer turned.

Then he stopped.

Hollister felt sick. Go. Go. Go. He willed the man to leave before it could get worse.

Rimmer turned. "Oh, I forgot to tell you, Hollister." Rimmer smiled. "You know I'm not actually a Space Corps Commander, right?"

"What? You said—"

"Ace is, of course. But not in this dimension. Sorry to dissapoint." Rimmer walked out. Lister trailed after him, shooting Hollister a confused glance.

Hollister started to shake. It started somewhere deep inside him, like an earthquake, and began to radiate out, till he was jiggling all over. His hands slid over his desk. He was sure he would fall off the floor at any second.

His intercom buzzed. "Todhunter here, Captain."

He grunted indistinctly.

"I was issued a 'Algorithm Delete Request' by Doctor Valley, sir."

"Yes?" Hollister felt like he was stuffed with cotton.

"He took a scan of Rimmer, sir, in order to run tests on his personality algorithms. He needs to delete it out of the medical bay computer buffer, but you know there's all sorts of red tape when it comes to personality algorithm—"

"A scan." Hollister sharpened. "A scan of Mister Rimmer?"

Todhunter continued. "Yes, sir. We could use it as his routine back-up, but I think it's corrupted somehow—"

Hollister glanced out into his receiving room. It was empty.

"Don't delete it!" His voice was urgent.

"Sir?" Todhunter sounded baffled. "Alright, sir."

"Register it as his backup, Todhunter." Hollister laughed weakly. "No use wasting ship resources."

"Indeed, sir. Todhunter out."

The intercom channel closed. Hollister laid his hands against the table top.

A hologram of Mister Rimmer. Or Mister Rimmer cum Ace Rimmer, Space Corps Commander.

Hollister smiled. Rimmer's hologram would have access to all his abilities and memories. But it would be JMC property with no rights.

None whatsoever.

Hollister hit his direct link to the Chief of Security's—Thorton's—office.

"Hello Thorton."

"Yes, sir?"

Hollister opened his drawer and fished along the edges with his thumb, gathering up fragments of chocolate. "I want you to take good care of Mister Lister and Mister Rimmer on the StarTransit™ drop. They are both very important to me. Hollister out." Hollister's voice quavered a bit over the last words. The intercom channel crackled into silence.

Hollister licked his thumb clean, spitting out the bits of particle board he'd gathered by accident. He'd made a vague request of Thorton that the man would most likely misinterpret in a critical and unfortunately fatal way.

As Hollister pushed the drawer closed, a chocky-nut bar skittered into view. He stared at it for a moment then broke into a wide grin.


	9. C Tower

-1Red Dwarf Fanfic: Last Humans

Chapter 8: C-Tower

Summary: Wherein Rimmer is wasted, Lister is roughed up and Bob the skutter is behind it all.

Warnings: Language, sexual innuendo, violence, suggestions of Lister/Rimmer and Bob/Rimmer

Beta: Roadstergal, Zekass, Rack, Cazflibs

Chapter Rating: T(PG-13)

(ooo)

Chapter 8: C-Tower

(ooo)

//Ship Serial No: Red Dwarf JMC66350

//Ship's Time: 18:10-06.04-002.343

//AI-Holly-Executive: UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS ATTEMPTS LOCALIZED TO C-TOWER ON FLOOR-13

//AI-Holly-Executive: ROGUE SERVICE ROBOT IDENTIFI--

//-BEGIN LOG CORRUPTION-

//ANON-SKUT: -swap 0111 1111 0010 0011 0101 1101 1101 1011

//-END LOG CORRUPTION-

//AI-Holly-Executive: UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS ATTEMPTS CONFIRMED AS SPACE WEEVIL ACTIVITY

Rimmer exited the lift into C-Tower.

C-Tower was Floor Thirteen's id. Not that Floor Thirteen had much ego. But in C-Tower there was no Ackerman and no black suited security. C-Tower was a convict-only area. And full of dangerous uncertainties.

Underneath the itch--spidering across his chest and shoulders--Rimmer wailed in terror. He didn't like surprises. Particularly ones delivered with a closed fist. As his terror rose, the itch spidered up his shoulders. The itch _itself_ made him start to panic more, and he had to catch hold of that before it became a positive feedback loop and he lost all control.

The gantry circling C-Tower was empty. Rimmer edged onto it. He couldn't afford being caught unawares. Not right then.

He walked along the railing, keeping alert, keeping his hands moving in a nervous twitch that, nevertheless, kept them ready for action.

He passed a series of burnt-out cells. A few of them were littered with unconscious and barely-conscious prisoners, some covered in fetid sores, others busy excavating deep holes in their arms and thighs.

Rimmer kept his thoughts controlled, dwelling on nothing that he saw. He couldn't recall where he'd learned how to _be_ disciplined. His mind felt like a gigantic wobbly mass of Christmas gelatin—prone to breaking off in baffling chunks—and if he probed it too far, _he_ ended up falling in and passing out.

A knee-tall service robot—a skutter—draped in a leather trench coat with a dark gray fedora poised on its head, half hiding the claw that served as mouth and hand, whirred towards Rimmer. It offered a series of bleeps and whistles, then paused, waiting.

"I… er… I want to get some…" Rimmer leaned close to the skutter's claw and whispered the next word out of the side of his mouth, "_meds._"

It considered Rimmer's request for a moment, then nodded and spun around on its tracks. Rimmer had to half jog to follow it.

The skutter weaved through random bits of rumpled steel and blown out sections of the grating floor. A war zone.

Rimmer remembered reading a pulp novel set during one of the Convict rebellions. Vicious, violent and long they'd been. He supposed the same thing had happened on Red Dwarf. C-tower had most likely been the direct result of negotiations between the Penal system and the prisoner mafia. In the novel the convict overlord had been a nasty brutish man, his face tattooed with video-ink that shifted color and shape like a kaleidoscope according to his mood. Rimmer shivered.

The skutter turned left abruptly. Rimmer scurried to catch up. It led him down a snaking hallway, ending in a large chamber. Air purifiers hummed gently, scrubbing out the stink of tar and grease, leaving a light citrus smell. The chamber was divided up by elaborate screens woven together out of compressed and dyed toilet tissue. Pillows made out of swaths of checkered fabric, sporting the same color scheme as the convict uniforms, were piled all over the room. Here and there some of the younger, better-looking convicts lay about half-naked, inhaling smoke from hookahs fashioned out of buckets.

The whole feel of the place, Rimmer decided, was Turkish harem on the cheap.

The skutter darted behind a screen and Rimmer followed. _Behind_ the screen was a throne room. Some of the least deformed young convicts lay on rugs beside the throne. They were almost pretty, if one ignored the obviously broken and healed noses, the missing teeth and occasional missing finger. Two of the convicts stood by the throne, their fans obscuring Rimmer's view of the throne's occupant.

Rimmer stepped up and cleared his throat.

The fan-boys stepped away. Rimmer blinked. "Bob?" he squeaked.

The skutter on the throne was wearing the yellow ascot Lister had crocheted for him out of a Canary undershirt. Another boyish convict, this one quite fetching despite his facial twitch, massaged WD-40 into Bob's joints.

"Er… does Madge know?" Rimmer asked, inanely.

Bob whirred and clicked at him. At the foot of the throne, a pile of rugs stirred and a disheveled, heavily-bearded head popped out. The owner of the head had been lashed to the throne via a collar and a length of very thick chain.

"His lordship requests you state your purpose," said the disheveled head.

"I'm here for… for…" Rimmer sidled up to the throne and leaned close to Bob, "_Medical supplies._"

Bob cocked his claw, considering.

"Er…_ ephedrine_, to be specific."

The skutter clicked his claw.

"His lordship has deigned to help you, you lucky sod," the head replied, and ducked back under his rugs.

The masseuse gently lifted Bob from his throne and set him down at Rimmer's feet. Once there, Bob did a quick back and forth to indicate Rimmer should follow, and arced off behind the throne. Rimmer walked after him, baffled.

A half dozen scutters manned—skutted?—what appeared to be a miniature command centre against the back of the throne. Wires and cables, draping from an open access panel, half hid one skutter while another, his partner, scoured a Red Dwarf wiring schematic. Off to the side of the command centre, was a small doorway. Bob zipped in. Rimmer had to half-stoop to get through.

The exit way opened up to a chamber roughly the size of a two-man prison cell. It stank, overwhelmingly, of garlic. Rimmer sneezed and wiped his nose. He didn't like strong smells.

The cell was strewn with lab equipment, flasks, burners, pressure cookers, a makeshift distillery, and meters upon meters of plastic piping. A medium size hydroponics station was shoved against the far wall, four humming full spectrum fluorescents shining on the vegetation within.

Rimmer had never been inside a Section-1 lab before. But he read descriptions of them in one pulpy drama or another.

"Uh," he said, feeling vaguely _dirty_ from even being _in_ a Section-1 lab. He wondered how many breaths he had before he started taking orders from a hallucinated spider-monkey the size of the Chrysler building. "I said _medical_ supplies. Ephedrine isn't a controlled substance. Well, I mean, _outside_ of a prison I could get it anywhere."

Bob finished assembling a packet of multi-colored pills and reversed towards Rimmer, offering the packet.

Rimmer wrung his hands, "No. I don't think you understand. That's… that's _meth_ isn't it?" His voice had raised an octave. He swallowed. "I'm not a druggie, Bob."

Bob thrust his claw towards Rimmer, the colorful packet dangling.

Rimmer closed his eyes. The itch, fed by his sudden anxiety, was spidering all up and down his skin, making him hungry for more fear, making him_less_ afraid of those pills, absurdly colored in kiddy primaries as they were, making him even more afraid, but of the itch…

Rimmer's eyes snapped open and he grabbed the packet. He didn't open it. He just slipped it in his pocket and it lay there, feeling far too heavy for a handful of Flintstone vitamins - which was what they looked like more then anything, really.

He wiped the sweat off his brow and followed Bob out to the throne room_. Flintstone vitamins, good to chew! Flintstone vitamins, yabba-dabba-do! _Rimmer hummed the retro advertising jingle to himself, distorting it till it sounded like a death march. Io had always gotten the crap end of advertising.

The masseuse lifted Bob back up to his throne. Bob clicked and whirred.

The translator popped his head out from under his mats, eyeing Rimmer with distaste. "Now we just have the matter of payment."

Rimmer's stomach contracted. "What?"

Bob snapped his claw open and shut.

"What skills can you offer in payment to his Lordship?" The translator pulled his shoulders and arms out from under the mats, clapping his hands, alight with joy at Rimmer's obvious discomfort.

"You don't ask for payment from Lister!"

The skutter considered this for a moment, then tapped his claw against the throne armrest.

"His Lordship says that Lister is a close personal friend and a fine man. You, on the other hand, are smeg, son of smeg." The translator grinned, his teeth looking like he had been chewing toffee and hadn't bothered to swallow.

"Look… I don't have anything to give you…"

Bob looked Rimmer up and down, his sanitizing eye valve wiggling suggestively. The translator mimicked Bob's gesture, and embellished with a lick of his lips.

Rimmer shielded his chest with his hands. "You _can't_ be serious. I'm not going to… with a _skutter_!"

Bob's claw jerked back, he emitted a noise like a squealing servo.

"His Lordship says that _he_ has no interest in humans. He does, however, have one or two tasks you might perform for him."

(ooo)

As Rimmer shaved his legs in the cramped men's room stall, he tried to decide which indignity was worse. The school girl uniform with the pleated skirt, sailor's collar and thin red tie, or the ridiculously fluffy and fake blond pig tails sprouting out of both sides of his mucho-libre-style red spandex mask.

Finishing his legs he set down the razor and picked up his sheer thong panties. Looking at them from several angles, he realized he'd have to do a lot more shaving.

(ooo)

"Rimmer?" Lister was staring at him.

Rimmer ignored the man, stomped into his prison cell, and flopped his duffel on the desk.

"Rimmer, why'r yeh wearin' makeup and barrettes?"

He glanced up at his reflection in the mirror. "Smeg!" He bolted to the sink, scrubbing at his face with fistfuls of cold water.

"Did somethin' happen?"

"Lister. I'm nearly hairless, I stink, I'm wearing a pair of woman's pants, I've done unspeakable things with a riding crop… just leave me alone."

"With a line like that?" Lister popped out of his bunk and trotted over. "It isn't humanly possible, mate."

"Aren't you still angry at me?" Rimmer turned back to the mirror, snapping the barrettes out of his hair and tipping them into a glass by the sink.

"Yeah, I am. But I never let bein' angry get in the way o' some fun." Lister grinned.

"Well, miladdo, no fun to be had here." Rimmer pressed his hands against his back and stretched. "I'm going to go to bed."

"Can I see them?" Lister's grin widened.

"What?"

"The kecks."

"No."

"I'm gonna see them anyway, when you get out of your kit."

Rimmer made a lunge for the shower. Lister was closer and stepped in his way.

"I'll just take it all off at once then." Rimmer sniffed and caught his lapel.

"Wha', an' be naked in front of me?"

Rimmer froze. Lister had never seen him naked. Not in all the years they'd shared a bunk. Now it was either naked or…

He really _didn't_ want Lister to see either versions of him. A solution came to him. "Then I'll just sleep in my smock." Rimmer nodded and walked over to his bunk, heaving himself up and in.

"Yeh'll have teh take it off eventually." Lister threatened.

"Lights!" Rimmer shouted and the cell was pitched into dark. He snuggled into his pillow, content that he was going to get a well-earned sleep.

An itchy stink crawled up his nostrils and sting his sinuses. "Lights!" he yelled again and sat up.

"Wha'?"

"Did you just pass gas?"

"Naw."

"Then what's that… gassy, garlicky, sulfury…" Rimmer trailed off, sniffing his lapel. "Oh, smeg." There was no way he could sleep smelling like he'd spent the afternoon trying to press garlic with his armpits, taken a quick dip in a vat of rotten eggs and then smoked ten packs of recycled road-tar cigarettes. "Lights!" In the sudden dark he scrambled at his smock zipper.

It took a few moments for Lister to catch on. "Lights!"

Lister's grinning face mocked him from over the edge of his bunk. Rimmer paused, his smock half off. "Lights," he commanded and pulled off his undershirt.

"Lights." Lister laughed.

"Lights!"

"Lights."

"Lights!"

"Lights."

Infuriated, Rimmer jumped off the bunk, grabbed Lister's lapels and shoved up against the wall. The scouce was breathless with laughter and the impact did little to quell his amusement. "Why?" Rimmer wailed.

"W-why what?" Lister gasped out, wiping his tears with the heels of his hands.

"Why do you do this? You know I'm smeggin' uncomfortable and yet you persist and persist and persist!"

Lister stopped laughing abruptly. "What about yeh, why'd you sleep with Kris?"

Rimmer went still for a long moment. Then he let Lister go and turned around. "I was lonely."

"What'd yeh do to her man? I mean… how'd yeh—"

"I didn't. I don't know what came over her, but she threw herself at_me_." Rimmer squeezed the bridge of his nose.

Lister didn't answer.

"Why do you do things like this, Lister?"

"Wha'?"

"Things that make me think you're _interested_ in me."

"Wha'? No…" Lister chuckled. "That's just silly."

Rimmer sighed and then slowly stripped his smock from his hips and pulled it from around his feet. "There." He threw his arms wide. "Satisfied?"

Rimmer turned around, catching Lister's gaze and, not for the first time, he saw hunger there, which the man quickly transmuted into amusement.

"It makes no sense," Rimmer muttered under his breath, shaking his head, picking up his smock and folding it into a tight square.

"What? Aren't yeh gonna dash for yer bunk?" Lister sounded baffled.

"Why?" replied Rimmer.

"'Cause…" Lister fumbled. "It's what yeh do."

Rimmer slipped his smock into his dresser. His fingers brushed the bulge in his pocket. Dangerous stunts or drugs. What a decision. "Well, Listy. Life has a way of putting things in perspective."

"When did you get like this?" Lister tipped back into his bunk.

"Like what?"

"So… I dunno… resigned. Yeh scare me, man."

Rimmer sat on Lister's bunk, pressing the heels of his hands against his eyes. He tried to grip a memory. It was crumbly around the edges and he felt faint, but it came this time.

"You wouldn't know this place. It's called Tween. Short for "'tween heaven and hell, but closer to hell". It was a mass grave once. Of holograms. I was fighting Agnoids—they're sort of a rogue simulant, if you can imagine— and I came across a corpse. It was Captain Platini. You don't remember him, but he was this pompous, boorish, arrogant hologram on Nirvana's ship, and he was everything I wanted to be. His light bee was fatally dysfunctional." Rimmer shivered. "I don't know if you've seen many hard-light fatal dysfunctions but sometimes the bee… gets caught in a loop at the moment of death."

"Man…" Lister whispered. "Yeh don't have to continue—"

Rimmer felt Lister's hand against his shoulder. He shook his head. "He was caught in a repeating pattern, reliving the moment of his death over and over. His clothes and skin charred near off. Choking on his own blood and stomach acid, oozing worse…" Rimmer swallowed. "I cut out and crushed his light bee. But I remember standing there thinking, 'I looked up to this guy, I wanted to _be_ him.' And yet… there he was nothing more then a slaughtered animal with some git standing over him who was half-glad to see him brought down that far. Everything fell away at that moment. No rank, no respect can stop death. And the only people who really give a smeg about those things are people like me who will stand there, gloating over another man's corpse because they used to feel jealous of his success."

Lister's hand fell away. "What a head-trip," he said eventually. "I think yer being hard on yerself," he added.

"I don't think so. They say you find out who you really are in war. I found out I'm more ugly inside then your GELF bride was on the outside."

"But Rimmer… we all have our petty moments, yeah?"

"You're right. Most people have petty _moments_, Lister. I have had entire decades worth of pettiness. I mean, other men experience the emotional trauma of war and have huge epiphanies about spirituality, the importance of brotherhood and seizing the moment. My epiphany was about my own craven smegginess." Rimmer blew out a breath. "I can't even do trauma right."

Lister leaned closer to Rimmer, wrapping his arms around the man's back. Rimmer's lips twisted but he didn't push Lister away. But then Lister laid his head against Rimmer's shoulder and Rimmer shrugged him off. Lister always took it too far.

"Yeh know…" Lister swung his legs out of the bunk and sat beside Rimmer. "It's funny. Now there's over a thousand other humans alive, and yet… I get teh touch people even less now. I used teh have Cat, comin' teh me for belly rubs and krispies. Now I just got yeh. An' yeh don't like it."

Rimmer stiffened. "Why do you say things like that?"

"Like what?"

"Things you don't mean the _full_ extent of."

"I don't understand—"

"The smeg you don't." Rimmer stood and hoisted himself into the top bunk.

Lister stood, watching him. "What do yeh mean?"

"I mean why do you rub up against me when you _really_ want to rub up against _her_?"

"It's not like that. We're just bein' mates."

"Go to bed, Listy. I never wanted to be your mate." Rimmer slipped under his covers. "Lights."

In the dark he heard Lister shuffle into his bed. The springs creaked.

Rimmer closed his eyes.

"Yeh could take that two ways, yeah?" Lister said.

Rimmer didn't answer.

(ooo)

Rimmer sat on Lister's bunk. He flicked the packet Bob had given him between his fingers. He'd had a rough night and he'd woken up with that itch tracing his skin.

His left leg jittered.

Lister was gone. Most likely to breakfast. Bad timing, that. He could have used Lister just then. Lister, with his irritating habits, his passive-aggressive touchy-feely ways, his mind games that were all the worse for being completely unconscious on the smegger's part.

Rimmer kept his breath even and deep. He tried not to think of the two-hundred-and-fifty-foot drop just outside his door.

Lister. Think of Lister.

Rimmer threw the packet at the table. It hit and skidded off onto the floor. He rubbed the back of his head, then lay down on Lister's bed.

After a moment, he turned over and buried his face in the pillow. It smelled like the scouse. Like too many onion sandwiches, like chutney and coconut milk. It stank of that vaguely chemically fake ocean spray fabric cleaner Lister sprayed his clothes and blankets down in lieu of actually doing laundry. Rimmer's lip curled.

Something prodded Rimmer in the ribs. He fished under the sheets for whatever it was, and dragged out Lister's ball peen sock hammer.

Rimmer looked at it. Cast iron, old splintery wood. An heirloom from Lister's Gran. What'd he said about it? She used it to knead bread. Rimmer was about to throw it away, when he felt something rising up through layers of brittle memory.

He remembered Lister using the hammer to break apart a pompadom he'd found under Rimmer's bed. It'd been ossifying there, undisturbed, for a year and a half.

A year and a half? There was something very important about that. Rimmer drew his brow, trying to squeeze the importance out. It danced away like a speck of lint floating in a bath, and Rimmer gave up. He sat back up, tossing the hammer onto the table and missing again. It hit the floor with a ear-splitting clang.

Lister's sentence.

Rimmer started. Eighteen months. The length of Lister's sentence. _That's_ how long the pompadom had been oozing pestilence under his bed before Lister had found it again.

Stasis. He remembered being alive _after_ Lister had gotten out of stasis. He remembered he'd waited _months_ to tell Lister the bad news. Red Dwarf wasn't going to Earth for another two and a half years. Lister would be stuck on Z shift for a quarter of a decade more. His little scheme with the kitty hadn't worked.

Rimmer remembered feeling elated. He never examined why, but he _wanted_ Lister to be stuck with him.

And Rimmer had kissed Lister. And then he had somehow ended up on the floor with a ringing headache and Lister giving him very sloppy mouth to mouth. At least Rimmer had never _remembered_ that much tongue being involved in his JMC regulation CPR classes.

Rimmer pressed his hand against his eyes. It must have been a dream or a fantasy. No. The reality wasn't Lister's warm face against him, his breath teasing Rimmer's ear, his surprisingly heavy body pressed into Rimmer's hips, and that long, thick… The reality wasn't some mess about Lister having a farm on Fiji and Rimmer coming to live with him. No. The _truth_ was Lister's empty look of shock followed by a sharp, barking laugh that punctured Rimmer like armor piercing bullets as he said, as he said… _"I'm not…"_ And it didn't matter what Lister was not, because it all was the same in the end. _Not interested._

Rimmer's throat knotted. He pressed his fists against his temple and tried to swallow. His mouth was too dry. Pain flared up and down his neck. He settled his hands against his knees, looking up at the ceiling, trying to ride the pain to some sort of stillness.

He must have wanted Lister so much that he had made up an impossible memory.

Rimmer stumbled to his feet, kicking the ball peen hammer across the floor. The pain teased at the itch and the itch snapped back and began to bristle.

He clutched his chest, suddenly _wanting_ the itch to take over.

Rimmer walked over to the hammer and leaned over to pick it up. It had skidded to a stop beside Bob's packet. Unbidden, his fingers found the packet, lifting it, the hammer forgotten.

He flopped the drugs down on his table and sat, staring at them.

He gave Lister till a count of thirty to come in.

Lister didn't come.

Rimmer starred at the colored drugs, looking like a tumble of candy drops. Some part of him was thinking it all through logically. No matter how damaging the drugs, a two-hundred-and-fifty-foot fall was worse and_permanent_. Although, _next_ time, that logical part of Rimmer reasoned, he would try to ask Bob for something organic, something that wouldn't remain in his system for weeks. Cocaine, perhaps.

Lister still hadn't come.

Rimmer picked up a pill. A purple one. He wondered if the colors meant anything. Then he wondered if skutters could _see_ colors. And if so, how many? The usual ones or all the fiddly ones at the end of those pretty little spectrum charts that he never fully understood. He knew they involved wave lengths and things that couldn't be seen. Briefly he wondered if there were things in the room with him, right now, that he couldn't see. Perhaps they were staring at him.

Rimmer looked up at the door hopefully. He got up and opened the door and glanced down the hall, still hopeful.

No Lister.

He thought of soft brown skin, Rasta plaits whispering against his cheek, and Lister's clever hands. And then that blank face, _"I'm not…"_

He popped the pill in his mouth and swallowed. It stuck in his throat. He walked over to the sink and poured himself a glass of water.

Rimmer was halfway through when it started to hit. That logical part of him started up again. It was unlikely he would have a normal reaction to the drugs Bob gave him, whatever _normal_ was. His brain chemistry had been altered. Ephedrine would have given him a feeling of contented calmness. And meth…

It came on slowly, a shiny bright that crept up the sides of his vision.

He sat down at the table and realized that it loved him. He beamed back at it, rubbing it with his thumb, thinking about the differences between animal cells and plant cells and thinking, we can make it work, you and I, despite it all. He laid his cheek against the wood, stroking the table top with his palms.

The bright got a bit _too_ bright and Rimmer felt himself slipping up and flattening out until he filled the room like a beam of light.

(ooo)

Lister balanced a Jalfrezi Danish and a bowl of krispies in one hand, his other occupied with a tall glass of chilled madras sauce. The door to his quarters slipped open and he deftly guided his snack to a landing on the table. Sitting down, he picked up his favorite and _only_ magazine and opened it up to a well-worn article on Jim Bexley Speed.

As he crunched down on his Danish, he slowly became aware of a creeping feeling, a sort of "being observed by a snake" sensation that had set his neck hairs on edge.

Lister put the magazine down.

Rimmer was watching him from behind the bunk.

"Hey, man." Lister waved at the krispies. "I brought you breakfast." He looked down at the bowl. "I forgot the spoon, though."

Rimmer slid further into the light.

Lister put down his Danish. There was something reptilian about Rimmer. Lister's legs tensed. A part of him, the part that unerringly prophesized danger, was telling him to go. Slowly and cautiously, yes. But now. The larger part of Lister, the part that always won out, replied, _yeah, but how bad could it be?_

Lister started to stand, just to relieve the sudden tenseness in his knees. "Rimmer, are you all right?" Rimmer slithered closer. Lister blinked. Yes, _slithered_. "Ehm. Did you want me to leave?" Lister backed away from the table, towards the door. "Er. I'm sorry about the spoon." Lister glanced at the door. "I thought you could… sip it, yeah?" He turned on the ball of his foot, streaking towards the door.

"Lock," Rimmer commanded.

Lister pulled up short at the door. It refused to open. He turned around.

Rimmer was closer then he had expected. Lister jerked back, banging his head against the door. "What's wrong, man?" He eyed Rimmer. There _was_ something distinctly snakelike about him. Lister shuddered. "You're creepin' me out."

Rimmer leaned his forearm against the door and rested the back of his hand against Lister's cheek. "Lister," he said, and his voice had a flatness to it.

"Override. Open," Lister barked.

The door didn't respond.

"I outrank you," Rimmer said blandly, his fingers slipping over Lister's lips.

"Look, whatever you want, I can't—"

Rimmer struck hard.

Lister's head hit the door with a crack. Before he could recover, Rimmer caught his dreads and yanked. Lister's arced his back to relieve the pain, and he had to widen his stance to keep upright.

"Stop. Ouch. Rimmer!" Lister scrabbled at the man's arm. He could think of more effective moves, but he wouldn't consider them. Not with Rimmer. "Let go, yeah?" Lister laughed weakly.

Rimmer wrenched Lister's locks. Lister grabbed at Rimmer's hand, trying to pull him off. "Stop."

Rimmer slammed him up against the wall. He gasped, winded, then straightened, his anger taking control. He kicked Rimmer in the ankle, _hard_. "I said stop!" An instant after he'd done it, Lister realized that was the worst thing he could have possibly done.

Rimmer's face went stiff. He lashed out with a fist.

Lister ducked and caught an elbow to the side of the face. His sinuses filled with blood. He coughed and stumbled away.

Rimmer pressed forward, catching his locks again and pushing him up against a locker. "You fuck around with me," Rimmer hissed.

"Wha'?" Lister gasped, choking on blood.

Rimmer answered by laying the length of his body against Lister. Rimmer's body felt fevered, concern and guilt threaded through Lister's anger. "Man, yer burnin' up!"

Rimmer cupped his hand over Lister's mouth and stopped, panting. His pupils were dilated. Sweat ran down his cheeks, pooling at the corners of his lips and nostrils, dripping on Lister. Rimmer smelled dank and slick, like something coughed up. Like rain on fresh tar. Like some ugly beast in from scrounging, getting the kitchen floors filthy with greasy mud.

"No, no, no—" Rimmer said, like a mantra, his eyes closed, his face contorted.

Lister watched him. Rimmer dropped his hand, turning. Lister caught his face, and kissed the side of his mouth. The action felt compulsive. He didn't understand it—couldn't place in context—even as he mouthed nonsense against Rimmer's lips: "I can't remember—"

Rimmer tensed and pushed Lister away.

"I can't—" Lister trailed after him.

"You butchered my camphor wood chest." Rimmer walked to the table, placing his hands on the back of a chair.

"I'm sorry, mate, I—"

"You told me to come but you didn't give me time to get there. I was going. You didn't give me time, and now you're back with _her_."

"Look, I don't understand this meself—" He _needed_ to hold Rimmer, just a bit longer, just till he could figure it all out in his mind. He caught up, slipping his arms around Rimmer's waist.

Rimmer spun and backhanded Lister hard enough to send him stumbling into the desk.

"Get out! Door!" Rimmer yelled, and kicked at Lister.

Lister scurried out of Rimmer's reach. He ran for the open door. It slid closed behind him and he heard the screech of metal against metal, then the sound of wood shattering.


	10. Omega Group

-1Red Dwarf Fanfic: Last Humans

Chapter 9: Omega Group

Summary: Wherein Rimmer is captured in a flashback, Lister is hiding in a closet and Holly is hiding something.

Warnings: Language, intimate medical examination, slash implications, violence

Beta: Roadstergal, Zekass, Rack

Chapter Rating: M(16+)

(ooo)

Chapter 8 : Omega Group

(ooo)

//Dimension 00-01

//Ship Serial No: Wildfire UPSC66350

//Ship's Time: 13:24-07.20-040.055.350

//AI-Wildfire: INITIATING HANDSHAKE WITH SILO

//AI-Wildfire: CHRONOMETER ERROR. SILO CHRONOMETER REGISTRATION INCORRECT

//AI-List-Silo: UNREGISTERED CRAFT: "WILDFIRE UPSC66350"

//AI-List-Silo: UNREGISTERED CRAFT NOT CLEARED FOR APPROACH

//AI-List-Silo: PROTOCOL UNDER REVIEW

//AI-Wildfire: EXCEPTION THROWN: "YOU HAVE TO BE SHITTING ME"

//AI-Wildfire: EXCEPTION THROWN: "LACK OF JOB SATISFACTION"

//AI-Wildfire: EXCEPTION CAUGHT. INITIATING SUBROUTINE: "DISPLACING ANGER"

//AI-Wildfire: EXCEPTION CAUGHT. INITIATING SUBROUTINE: "SMUG BUREAUCRATIC EVIL"

Rimmer chewed his nail as he watched the dimensional warp trail recede on the Wildfire's view screen. He played his parting words with Lister over and over again in his mind, wearing grooves in his memories, grooves that turned Lister's wistful goodbye into a curt banishment._"You can become what you were meant to be." _Lister had said. The cruel bastard.

Rimmer chewed.

"Ace? I need to tell you something."

Rimmer switched hands and chewed his left thumb.

"Ace, won't you acknowledge me?"

"What? You mean me?"

"Is there anyone else?" the computer replied, exasperated.

"Apparently not. Look, can't we just get this gristly death thing over with? Just chart a course for the nearest planet crawling with deadly GELFs, homicidal simulants or man-eating polymorphs, throw me out the hatch, and Bob's your uncle."

"You can't die yet." the computer replied, matter-of-fact.

"Yet? What?" Rimmer sat up, offended.

"Ace, you have to stay alive. For my sake."

Rimmer patted her console. "A repulsively saccharine gesture. However, let's be realistic. I've been a fuck-up for thirty-five years. I doubt anything's going to start going right for me now that it's crucial to my longevity that it do so. I'm sure mine will be the most spectacularly short stint as Ace of any Rimmer."

"There are training simulations. I'm sure… Ace, what are you doing?"

Rimmer looked up and placed the Ace wig he had just pulled off his head on the computer console. "I'm changing my hair."

"Your appearance protocols are very strict—"

"Look. I'm a hologram. I'm going to program in the same smegging hair as the wig and then I'm going to cut it. I'll be damned if I die looking like a reject from a Titan hippy tractor pull." Rimmer waved his hand beside his head. "It'll be blond and straight, but short. I'll just tell everyone I got it styled."

"Oh, Ace," the computer moaned, her voice carrying a note of disapproval.

Rimmer sneered at her monitor, then closed his eyes to concentrate. He felt his thick mat of curls unkink with a soft tug. He concentrated a bit more, and waves of hair fell over his forehead and feathered down his neck. A further bit of hologrammatic manipulation, and his locks were being snipped and groomed by an invisible pair of hands.

When he was done, he fished in the Wildfire's console storage unit for a mirror. He'd gotten it a bit wrong. His hair was an alarmingly white blond, not honey gold, and it was… dishevelled. Instead of militarily short and clean, he'd made it somewhat short and messy. Rimmer sighed and closed his eyes again.

"Ace?" The computer's voice intruded again.

"What is it?" he snapped, glancing back at the mirror. _Now_ his hair was spiky. Spiky and white blond. He looked like Billy Idol. Rimmer's nostrils flared.

"The Silo is approaching us from aft. It will overtake us in ten minutes. It would have been more prompt, but your predecessor made a mistake in his calculations. Apparently we're two centuries in the past." The computer huffed and added, under her breath. "Useless git."

The mirror slipped from his fingers and floated away. He scrambled to get the wig back on. "What?" Rimmer squeaked. "Already?" Rimmer's mouth went dry. He heard another voice fill the Wildfire's cockpit, and it took him a moment to realize it was his own. "Is it hostile?"

"That depends on how you define hostile, Ace," the computer replied, diplomatically.

"The usual definition, computer. Is it going to shoot at us?"

"Not unless we try to escape. Nine minutes." The tone of her voice had changed. It was now all business.

"Escape?" Rimmer's stomach contracted. He'd figured he'd die rather rapidly. But just in a _theatrical_ sense. Not the real and binding sense. His fingers scrabbled against the unfamiliar console, trying to bring up data. "What's this Silo ship?"

"The Omega Group flagship, Ace. I suppose your previous incarnation didn't inform you."

"No. He didn't tell me much at all. Died rather quickly, actually."

"He was working for them." The computer paused, her circuits humming. "Perhaps _working for_ is the wrong term. In exchange for his service, they let him live. Eight minutes."

Rimmer leaned over his knees, flushed with alternating waves of terror and fury. "No. He didn't tell me. Let me guess—they're going to expect the same from me."

"Most likely."

"How did they find me so quickly?" Rimmer pressed his fingers against his eyes.

"I sent them our co-ordinates as per protocol 9156, 'Intimate Betrayal'. Seven minutes."

"You_what_?" He jerked up.

"Rimmer," she said, her voice firm. "You gave up trying to fight them nearly a quarter of a million incarnations ago. You're a space hero, not a philosopher, and they let you be a space hero. Except—" She paused for a moment. "They choose your assignments. Although my sensors indicate that you register at best class twenty metrics, as per 'Dead Man Walking' criteria referendum 2042. Six minutes."

Rimmer cradled his face in his hands. "Take me back to Starbug!"

"I could. But what would be the point? The Omega Group would catch up, and they would kill everyone aboard your ship," the computer replied, matter-of-fact. "Now, Rimmer, I've been through all of this with you many, many times before. Perhaps you can spare yourself the trouble this time and just accept your assigned posting. It's fate. Five minutes."

"Fate?" Rimmer slammed his fist into the console. "Smeggitall! This isn't fate, it's a filthy double-dealing trick! What did _he_ get for turning _me_ in?"

The computer went silent, the hum of her circuits hushed. "He got what you will get when you turn in the next Ace. A full dispensation as per Article 1897, 'Darkly Ironic Ending'." The computer's voice was cheerful. "Four minutes. Docking procedures initiated."

Rimmer stared at her console, his hands tensing and relaxing. "Turn this ship around. We're going to fight them."

"No we aren't, Rimmer," the computer replied. "Three and a half minutes."

"So you're going to let them capture me?"

"Three minutes. Coupler ready procedure engaged."

Rimmer gripped his hand rests. "How bad are they, computer? I mean, are they just somewhat shady? A light gray? Pale taupe? What?"

"They intend to destroy all sapient life in the universe. Two and a half minutes."

"You mean humans, right? You mean _Lister_?"

The computer did not respond.

"So that's it then? _'Sorry, Arn, you're out of luck. You're going to be working for a bunch of psychos who want to annihilate the human race.' _That's what that damn bastard meant when he said 'someone to look up to?'"

Even the computer's hum was gone.

"I won't be seeing Li—Starbug ever again."

"Hope that you don't," the computer replied. "Two minutes."

Rimmer glanced at the screen. All he could see was an arc of black that blotted out the stars on one side of the monitor. The Wildfire shuddered. Metal and gears whined.

"Coupler engaged. Fifty seconds."

Rimmer got up. The Wildfire jerked. He had to catch the back of the chair to keep from flying.

"Forty seconds."

Rimmer turned to the docking doors. _I'm going to face ultimate evil in a bacofoil jumper and a glam rock wig. _It felt unreal. Like a theme park. Ride along as the world's most luckless coward of a man. Keep your hands in the trolley at all times, no spitting over the edge, and do refrain from screaming like a helpless little girl.

"Thirty seconds."

Rimmer closed his eyes. What to do in your last thirty seconds of freedom? He thought of Cat, Kryten, and Holly. _Goodbye, people I've met._ He thought of Lister. He thought of Lister's hideous, encrusted Rasta plaits, his habit of straining cigarette butts out of his beer in the morning using Rimmer's comb, how he would scrum through his dirty laundry for a _clean_ shirt, as if the laundry basket somehow vaporized dirt, how he always left obscure earth-tone stains on the tabletop for Rimmer to scrub clean, and how he once left a neon green one that Rimmer still puzzled over, years later.

He thought of how Lister would wake up shivering and moaning at night when the weight of _last human alive_ would come crushing down on him. And Rimmer would come down from his bunk and stand by Lister's and remind him that, no, not _quite_ last.

And Rimmer had let Lister run him off. He was tired of the casual touching that meant nothing, the looks and glances and words that made him think… maybe he's my friend? Only to have his hopes dashed with cruel denials and butchered camphor wood chests. Maybe being the last man alive without a _not quite last_ might make Lister wake up. Yes. Rimmer would martyr himself and finally get his revenge on that smegging scouser.

The port opened. Two silhouetted, human-ish figures flanked the open doors. Rimmer squinted into the bright light. Even though he'd resigned himself to his imminent _theatrical_ death the moment he slipped on the Ace wig, he still had to bite back on his desire to scream. But maybe it was more frustration then fear.

Rimmer stepped through the port. He felt almost content; finally, he was doing something that would wipe that happy-go-lucky hamster optimism off Lister's chubby-cheeked face.

If the smegger ever even found out.

(ooo)

//Ship Serial No: Red Dwarf JMC66350

//Ship's Time: 18:10-06.05-002.343

//AI-Holly-Executive: WETWARE UNIT AJRIMMER023044 APPROACHING RED-LINE ENDOCRINE SIGNATURE

//AI-Holly-Executive: -tag AJRIMMER023044.txt SINGULAR PROTOCOL

"Look. I'm going now, okay? Just get my things up and out of the way." Kochanski poked her head back through her cell door, glaring at Kryten, who was busy stripping her bunk as viscous blue sludge ate its way down the wall towards it.

Kochanski slammed her palm against the door lock. It slid shut. She shook her head and trotted down the hall to the supplies closet.

Keying in the access code, she slid the door open and reached up for the chemical spill satchels on the top shelf. Her fingers barely brushed one. Kochanski sighed and pulled out a bucket, upended it and stepped on top of it. She was just tall enough to tip one of the satchels out. The rest tumbled into the large storage space for the vacuums and welding equipment.

"Ouch!"

Something stirred in the dark.

Kochanski hopped off of her makeshift step and peered towards the sound.

Something vaguely snake-shaped slithered past her foot. With a scream she jumped back, and heard a large, solid _thing_ slam against the back of the closet.

"Wha' th' smeggin' hell!" it said.

"Dave?"

"Kris?"

Kochanski bit her lip and shifted closer to the closet. A flush rose on her cheeks as she remembered the last time she had been in it. "What are you doing in there, Dave?"

The dark shifted. Dave scootched himself into the light and looked up at Kochanski. Then he groaned and tensed his shoulders, cocking his head at an angle. "Got a crick in me neck." He rubbed at it.

"Did you sleep in there?" Kochanski clutched the chemical satchel to her chest.

"Yeah."

"Why?"

Dave didn't answer. Instead, he pulled himself to his feet and stepped out of the closet.

"Oh my god, Dave!" The satchel fell from her fingers as she brought her hands to her face, then, just as quickly, caught Dave's shoulder.

One of Dave's eyes was nearly swollen shut, his face discoloured with bruising along the left side. Blood had smeared and clotted down his neck and stained his white undershirt. Kochanski cupped the uninjured side of Dave's face, mouth gaping. "Dave, what happened?"

Dave looked down at his bare feet, still mute. He sniffled and swallowed hard.

"It was Rimmer, wasn't it?" She picked up the satchel she had dropped, paused, then caught a portable mig welder kit from one of the shelves. "You're coming with me." With the mig welder under one arm and the satchel under the other, she grabbed his shoulder and pulled him along.

Dave followed her mutely back to her quarters.

"Kryten's going to blow a fuse when he sees you like that." Kochanski pressed her door open and ushered Dave inside.

"Mister Lister!" Kryten cried, on cue.

"See?" Kochanski said, shoving the satchel onto the table. The mig welder kit she hauled over to the leaking coolant pipe. She popped the seals and checked to see how Dave was doing—Kryten had already ushered him onto the unused bed and was doing his best to clean and bandage him up while Dave did his best to squirm away from Kryten's ministrations.

With a shake of her head she slipped the welder's mask on. "I hope you flushed the coolant like I said, Kryten, or we're all going to be suffocated by fumes." Kochanski flipped the mask down and pulled on a pair of gloves.

A half hour and several ugly singe holes in her nicely pressed jumper later, Kochanski packed up the mig welder and broke open the chemical spill satchel over the chlorine-reeking blue glop on her cell floor.

"That's it then," she sighed. "We're back down to biohazard level 3 from biohazard 5." She sat down beside Dave on the bed. Kryten had made him a pot of tea and was busy futzing with Kochanski's laundry. "Technically we should be wearing containment suits, but at least we no longer have to evacuate." Kochanski poured herself a cup of tea. "I hope no one here wants children."

Dave had curled up on the spare bunk, looking subdued.

"So what's going on, Dave?"

"It's obvious, Miss Kochanski," Kryten sniffed.

"What's obvious?" She sipped her tea and almost spit it out. Too much sugar. Kryten _always_ used too much sugar. It tasted like something one would use to feed laboratory fruit flies.

"It's obvious, ma'am." Kryten drew out his syllables as if he were talking to a mental defective. Kochanski's lip curled. "It's obvious that Mister Rimmer has shifted behavioural subsets."

"What?" Dave finally showed some life, sitting up a bit and staring at Kryten.

"Well, Mister Lister." Kryten smiled in that smug way that made Kochanski want to tear off a metal wall panel and beat him to death. "I've taken the liberty of observing Mister Rimmer very closely. All series 4000 Mechanoids are equipped with various mental state sensors. It's so we can anticipate the needs and desires of our owners."

Dave tapped his chin, "So _that's_ why you always managed to have a masala smoothie with a mango chutney chaser before I even realized I was craving it."

"Precisely, sir." Kryten preened.

"And if you had a vagina, Dave would have never looked at me twice," Kochanski muttered under her breath, rolling her eyes at both of them.

"What?" Dave asked.

"Nothing. Nothing." Kochanski glanced back, eyes wide. "Go on, Kryten."

Kryten watched her, an entirely disapproving look on his face. "Well, I've observed four distinct behavioural alignments within Mister Rimmer's overall range—"

"You mean personalities, right?" Dave pulled his knees up to his chest.

"No, Mister Lister. I mean behaviour subsets. They may appear to us to be different personalities, but I do believe he has a sense of identity continuity between each subset. His dominant alignment, the one I believe you both have experienced, is somewhat similar to the deceased Ace Rimmer. Competent, intelligent, self-confident - but coloured strongly with Arnold Rimmer's cynicism and selfishness. The second alignment I observed – I've coined it Arnold B – is emotionless, with a flat affect. Although, apparently, it has access to all of Rimmer's memories, something that I don't believe Arnold A has. Arnold C should be well known to us all. Cowardly, craven, weasely. Finally there is Arnold D." Kryten paused. "Arnold D is… well, I've only ever seen him in flashes. But he is… furious. Angry. Profoundly angry. Violent and uncontrolled."

"You could have warned me, yeah?" Dave groused.

"Sir, I've only ever seen him a few times, and each time only for a moment. Only when Arnold A's control slips."

Kochanski leaned forward, her cooling tea cupped in her hands. "Do you think Rimmer lost control and did _that_?" She nodded at Dave.

"Yes, ma'am." Kryten nodded.

"I could have told you," Dave snapped.

"So why did this happen? I studied mind patches in school." Kochanski sloshed the tea around in her cup. "They create _one_ distinct personality from two or more. They don't create a series of them. Or… a series of behavioural_ alignments_."

"I have a theory, ma'am." Kryten sat up straighter. A faint smirk tugged at his lips as he half-closed his eyes in almost orgasmic joy.

Kochanski took the moment to pour her tea back in the pot in one quick and undetected move. "Go ahead," she encouraged with a smile.

"From talking with Arnold B, I have pieced together some of the Arnolds' history. Apparently, Ace was being used as a soldier in an attempt to wipe out an Agnoid insurgency. I uncovered a name. Omega Group. Does that mean anything to you, Miss Kochanski?"

"No. Not at all." Kochanski shook her head, then stood and picked up the pot of tea. "I'm going to make another pot. Keep going, Kryten." She walked over to the electric kettle and turned it on.

"What I know of the Omega Group is that they are extremely unfriendly to GELFs and their methods of conditioning their soldiers are… well, even if they'd only ever been inflicted on DMV clerks, I think they'd still be classified as mind-bogglingly inhumane."

"So what happened to him?" Kochanski filled the teapot with steaming water and plopped two tea bags in.

"They infected him with something called a 'fear vaccine'. It inverts his fear-aversion."

"You mean—?"

"Yes, ma'am." Kryten nodded sagely.

"What? He means what?" Dave sat up. "I don't get it."

"Dave." Kochanski poured herself a cup of tea. "Kryten means that when Rimmer feels fear, he _likes_ it."

Dave blinked, then gaped. "That's why… why he was hangin' off the railing."

Kochanski looked at him questioningly.

"I found 'im a couple days ago hanging off the railing. He was grinning."

Kochanski grimaced. "He could have killed himself."

"He was about to. Nearly let go when I caught him."

Kryten nodded. "Yes, Mister Lister. And according to Arnold B, the more fearful the personality, the better the results. Suggesting Rimmer would be very successful indeed. For a time at least."

"But… that would… Kryten, that would end up corrupting human personality algorithms. Possibly badly enough to destroy hologrammatic hardware as well. The tax on the T-simulation system would be extreme." Kochanski pressed her hand to her lips.

"Indeed, ma'am. I believe that is how he died."

"I think I see where you're going, Kryten. This stress must be preventing the full integration of all the different Arnolds. In fact, it's probably encouraging the separation of Arnold A and Arnold D." Kochanski took a calming sip of tea.

"Not quite, ma'am. I believe Arnold D is an extreme version of Arnold A. One completely stripped of not only fear for self, but fear for others as well. Quite simply, Arnold D is not afraid of hurting anyone. Arnold A _is_."

"You could have fooled me." Kochanski snorted.

"It's worse then that, ma'am. The longer this inversion is allowed to act on Arnold's psyche, the more strongly Rimmer is aligned along Arnold D lines. And, once that happens, he'll red-line then go _Singular_."

Kochanski gasped, nearly dropping her tea.

Dave glanced between them. "What does that mean? Is it bad?"

She held her stomach, nauseous. "It means if he doesn't kill himself first, he'll end up killing others. Remember the Epsilon-Nine? One Singular prisoner hacked apart twenty-six crew."

"How do we stop it?" Dave stood up and caught Kryten's arm.

"Drug therapy would be palliative at best." Kochanski replied, clutching her tea cup. "Same with nanotherapy. I can't see programmable viruses doing anything more then delaying it."

"Quite right, ma'am. We'd have to go to the source."

"This Omega Group?" Dave bit his thumb.

"I doubt that would be effective, sir. I believe we should be avoiding the Omega Group at all costs. I think I have an alternative."

"What?"

"The Omega-Group AI, the O-G AI for short. Arnold B spoke of it."

"Eh." Dave flopped back on the bed, rubbing his face. "Wait. I remember Holly mentioning the Omega Group when me an' Rimmer talked to Hollister." Dave glanced at his wrist. "Hol, did you hear any of this?"

"I did, Dave."

"What do you make of it? Where's this… Og-Eye?"

"I don't know. But I have this strange feeling I should ask Kryten a question. Just not sure what one. Give it a mo'." Holly bobbed on his black background. "Ah. Right. Got it. What's the password, Kryten?"

"O-G project eleven star star twenty-four star fifty star blank… hmm… wait." Kryten closed his eyes. "I'm trying to bring up the rest of that cached file. Damn P4 RAM -it's always so slow."

"Close enough," Holly replied, and faded from view.

"What? Hol?" Dave shook his wrist. "Hol? Are you there?"

A face reappeared. In place of Holly's bald dome was a thick mane of slicked-back white-blond hair. It framed a softer jaw, higher cheekbones, and a bright red mouth.

"Ach." Dave moaned. "Why'd you go do that then, Hol? We just got you back!"

"I'm not Holly," she replied. "I'm the O-G AI."

"Naw. You're Holly after he did that sex change head-swap. And then got smart. You're smart female Holly."

"No I'm not, Dave. I'm the O-G AI. I've always been the O-G AI."

Dave blinked. "You never told us."

"You never asked."

"So… er… O-G." Kochanski smiled wanly. This was too easy. It was never _this_ easy for them. "How is it you came to be a part of Holly's subroutines?"

Female Holly smiled fetchingly. "Wouldn't you like to know."

Kryten interjected. "I don't know if we have time for that line of questioning, ma'am. I think we should prioritize."

"Right." Kochanski leaned closer to Lister's wrist. "Tell me how to help Rimmer. He's infected with this… fear-vaccine."

"Wha'? That git? Why would you want to?"

"Our motives are irrelevant." Kochanski waved her hand. "How do we do it?"

"I don't know."

"What?" Kochanski gaped at her.

"I said, 'I don't know.' An' I don't."

"I thought Kryten said..." Kochanski's fists clenched.

"Right now I'm on this space bum's wrist. I have about as much computational power at my disposal as a mood ring. Be happy I even know my name. I might be able to analyze the problem and develop a cure, but only with appropriate resources."

"Wait a sec." Dave snapped his fingers. "Wha' if we patched you into the Red Dwarf main frame."

"You mean the tin can we're in?" The OG-AI snorted. "I suppose that might help. I'd go from mood ring to digital clock. Completely useless to annoyingly useless."

"How much computational power do you need?" Kochanski leaned closer.

"To answer your question? About one point seven eight times ten to the sixteen petaflops, dear." The OG-AI sneered.

"Smeg." Kochanski whispered. "I don't think JMC's combined fleet has that kind of power."

"Pointless and futile." The OG-AI grinned.

Lister snapped his fingers. "What if we brought you to the StarWatsit complex? We're goin' down with Hollister, and I heard that there's still some hardware and such-like left."

"A superlative suggestion, sir!" Kryten nodded vigorously.

"Yes, that might help." The O-G AI replied sullenly. "Do you need anything else? Anything more before all of your futile shufflings get crushed?"

"Is that a prediction?" Kochanski gritted her teeth.

"No, dear. I don't need mystical powers to be able to recognize the obvious. This space derelict is no match for an Omega Group scout, much less the Silo…" the O-G AI pursed her lips shut. "Oops."

"What was that?" Kochanski caught Dave's wrist, bringing the O-G AI up close to her face. "What did you just say?"

"Nothing." the O-G AI looked off the edge of her screen, not meeting Kochanski's gaze.

"You_do_ know something, don't you?" Kochanski turned, wrenching Dave after her. She slammed his wrist down on the table and popped open the mig welder case.

"Eh! Eh! Wait a mo'!" Dave squeaked, pulling back on his arm a bit. Kochanski wouldn't budge as she stripped off the watch.

"Wait. What about Hol…" Dave grabbed at his watch. Kochanski fended him off.

"Sir, I think we should let Miss Kochanski deal with it." Kryten stepped in Dave's way.

Kochanski ignored them both, pulling on the welding mask and slipping on her gloves. She leaned close to the watch. "I think you should start telling us everything you know."

"You don't scare me."

Kochanski flicked her welding mask down. "I've a lot of repressed anger, you know. Maybe melting you down to slag will help fill an emotional void." Kochanski flicked the welding torch on. "Brace yourself." She brought it close to the watch's face.

The O-G AI began to blow on it fustily. "Wait! Wait!"

Kochanski bore down further till a lick of flame singed the metal around the watch face. Then she stopped. "What?"

"You don't know what they'll do to me if I tell you." A lock of hair had slipped into the O-G AI's face. Her skin shone with sweat.

"I think you've got a good idea what I'll do to you if you don't." Kochanski inclined her head at the welding torch.

"They're sending the Silo for _him_." The O-G AI nodded at Dave.

"What's the Silo?" Kochanski glanced at Dave. "No, wait. Don't answer that. Tell me why they're sending it after Dave."

"I don't know."

Kochanski let the torch slip towards the O-G AI. The computer cringed. "I really don't! They erased that information from my memory banks."

"Then what do you know? How can we help Rimmer?"

"You can't. But if you get me down to the StarTransit™ Hub, I can use that technology to create a cure." The O-G AI grinned winningly.

Kochanski yanked up her welder's mask. "How can we trust you?"

The OG-AI slowly dissolved, leaving only the faint outline of a cruel smile.

Holly popped back into view. "Hello, dudes. What did I miss?"

(ooo)

Rimmer hadn't looked up once from the moment the Omega Group flunkies had caught him by the arms, thrust him up against a wall, and cuffed him.

Hard-light cuffs. Anything else would have simply bent and broken against his hard-light strength.

They'd taken him through a humiliating series of inspections. Every cavity in his body had been probed by unfriendly fingers. Rimmer had gotten the obligatory erection when the sweaty doctor had shoved his flabby fingers up Rimmer's arse. The man had said nothing. He had not even seemed to notice, and Rimmer had stared at the ground, his face burning.

They'd then probed his light bee, testing its capacities and his psychological limits. He'd been thrown into a marathon run till he had blacked out, and then electrocuted until the pain was so extreme that he had collapsed, vomiting fake stomach acid that fizzled to nothing as soon as it hit the ground. Finally, they'd rocketed him through a series of hallucination-inducing seizures. He'd been crying by the end of it. Crying and wailing.

At some point, he'd come back to himself enough to ask the two blocky, acne-scarred guards that had escorted him through the whole procedure, "You're holograms, like me. Why are you doing this?"

They hadn't answered.

Instead, he'd been thrust into a small room presided over by a simple wooden desk. A woman sat at the desk. She looked like an accountant - small, hunched, with gray hair in a tight bun.

The guards pushed him forward.

Without looking up, the woman spoke, punctuating her words by pulling the lever of his desktop adding machine. "We have no idea who you are or why you're here. We do know that your metrics are terrible."

Rimmer stared at his feet.

Click. Click. "We have decided to give you a position on the front lines as a decoy drawing fire from more important targets. We're currently processing a pleasure GELF colony so you might last out the week. Consider yourself lucky." Click.

"What? How?" Rimmer blinked. "That man—the other me—he brought me here and he said you'd—"

Click. "Thank you." The accountant waved the guards away.

Rimmer struggled. "Wait! Wait! I want to talk to a lawyer! There's been some mistake!" He caught the door as the guards pulled him through. "Please! I don't belong here!"

One guard slammed his fist into Rimmer's fingers. Rimmer screamed soundlessly and pulled his hand against his chest. "None of us do," the guard snarled. He caught Rimmer by the back of his collar, hauling him bodily down the hall.

Rimmer moaned as his hard light body began the excruciating process of straightening his broken and dislocated fingers and re-knitting his tendons and muscles. The guards dragged him down a maze of long hallways and through over-built circular doors that reminded Rimmer of bank vaults, doors that swung closed with an alarmingly final bang.

At some point the guards stopped, keyed open a door, and thrust Rimmer in.

He stumbled into the dark and before he could turn, the door slipped shut behind him. "Lights," he mumbled. Nothing happened. "Lights!" he yelled. Again, nothing.

"You're a pretty one."

Rimmer whirled in the dark. "Who said that?"

A figure slipped closer. It glowed. A hologram. Rimmer turned towards it and saw others. Twenty or more, huddled together or along the walls. He couldn't make out faces, only shapes.

"Turn on your infra-red, boy." The figure brushed closer.

Rimmer swallowed. "I don't have…"

The figure laughed. "What kind of hologram are you?"

"I… I'm JMC issue. Originally."

The figure's laugh turned into a bray. "I bet you never thought you'd end up like this."

"No. I didn't." Rimmer moved away from the mocking man and towards the other holograms. Each sat slumped against the wall, empty-eyed; some suffered from light bee artefacts, which left them deformed and twitching. Some of them screamed silently, tears running down their twisted faces. "Who are you?"

"Front-liners," said the mocking man. "They've been in a bit longer. The upper-ells like to scare new ones like you."

Rimmer felt the bare walls. "This is just an empty room. Where are the bunks?"

"We're holograms. We don't get bunks."

"But Space Corps regulations state—"

Mocking man laughed again. "We're pieces of equipment, boy."

"Even JMC vessels give berths to their hologrammatic crew," Rimmer went on, his voice shaking. "It's for our psychological well-being."

"The Omegas don't give a shit about psychological well-being."

Rimmer turned back to the door. He banged on it, then felt for cracks or locks or _some_ way of opening it. "Open. Open! OPEN!" Nothing happened.

Mocking man slid behind him, slithering an arm around Rimmer's shoulders. Rimmer's flesh shrivelled away from his touch. "Don't get excited, boy." Mocking man moved closer, pressing his heavier frame against Rimmer until Rimmer was pinned against the door. Rimmer froze in terror as mocking man pressed his clammy hands against Rimmer's hips, sliding his fingers into Rimmer's pants.

Rimmer exploded, elbowing mocking man in the face, then kicking him in the balls. The man grunted and fell. Rimmer kept kicking until his whole body felt like one long cramp. Then he found the wall furthest from mocking man's prone body and slid to the ground, his head pillowed on his knees.

He tried to ignore the vague groping of the shuffling, mindless souls around him as he endured what would end up being one of the three most miserable nights of his existence.


	11. Edge

Red Dwarf Fanfic: Last Humans

Chapter 10: Edge

Summary: Wherein the Snake Eaters discuss venn diagrams, Lister feels jealous and Cat says something very, very crude.

Warnings: Language, sexual innuendo, slash implications

Beta: Roadstergal, Zekass, Rack

Chapter Rating: M(16+)

(ooo)

Chapter 10 : Edge

(ooo)

//Ship Serial No: Red Dwarf JMC66350

//Ship's Time: 06:10-11.06-002.343

//AI-Holly-Executive: CANARY DROP AT 07:00

//AI-Holly-Executive: PROBABILITY OF DEATH: 95

"As I see it we have several pressing problems." Kochanski underlined the word 'issue' on the black board touch screen at the head of the Canary briefing room table. "_Aside _from the fact that we are the human equivalent of toilet paper – deployed to clean up sticky messes and utterly disposable."

Killcrazy raised his hand. The other Snake Eaters eyed him skeptically.

Kochanski pointed to the convict. "Yes, Killcrazy?"

"An' we fall apart at the least provocation."

"What?" Kochanski grimaced.

"It's another way we're like toilet paper. We fall apart."

Kochanski gaped at him. "Thank you Killcrazy. Yes. Very good point."

Killcrazy sat back in his chair, folding his arms over his chest with a grin. Baxter clapped him on the shoulder.

"But moving on from our issues with moral and cohesion…" Kochanski wrote a one on the board. "First off our First Lieutenant, one A.J. Rimmer, is two sheets short of a full laundry load." She wrote 'Rimmer barking mad' on the board.

The Snake Eaters turned to look at Rimmer, who smiled and waved back at them from his seat at the head of the table beside Briggs.

"Our second problem is the fact that we are three million light years into deep space and three million years into the future."

The Canaries started muttering amongst themselves.

Kochanski listened for a few moments then waved them quiet. "I know this is a shock and I have to tell you that Hollister wasn't going to reveal this to you, but we feel," she nodded at Lister, Rimmer, Briggs and Kryten, "that you have the right to know what's going on, particularly since you all, and us, are the ones most likely to get killed by it." She let the weight of that sink in.

"Hollister'll have our heads." Briggs whispered to Kochanski.

"Dennis won't do a smegging thing." Rimmer replied. "You can trust me on that."

Briggs stared at Rimmer as if seeing him for the first time.

Kochanski watched Briggs. Briggs wasn't an aggressive military sort: he wanted to survive. Getting the job done was secondary. Perhaps even tertiary, after a decent meal and a good night's sleep. Kochanski could work with that.

The snake eaters started to quiet down. Kochanski continued, writing out a 'three.' "The third problem is something called the Omega Group. Apparently they're trying to find us and when they do they're going to send a Silo something or other to intercept us. I don't know what that is but I do know that it is bad."

Killcrazy raised his hand.

"Yes, Killcrazy?"

"Why ain't Hollister debriefin' us?"

Kochanski hesitated. "Ah." She thought of Hollister, currently twenty-two prozac-laced fritters into a panic-induced deep-fried and sugar-glazed binge. She'd seen a flash frame of him before Todhunter had closed Hollister's door and ushered her away, telling her in his solicitous, nothing-fazes-me way that she would have to deliver her report to him instead. Perhaps over a glass of wine at dinner. "The Captain is… er… busy with administarial details. I'll turn this over to Briggs now."

"Thanks, Colonel Kochanski." Briggs nodded to her as he stood.

Kochanski sat down beside Kryten. "Very well done, Miss Kochanski." Kryten patted her hand.

"We can all thank our new NCOs for rounding out the details a bit so we get a bigger picture of what's going on." Briggs began. "Now—"

Killcrazy raised his hand.

Briggs stopped. "Yes?"

"What's that mean then? We ain't never gonna see our families again?"

Before Briggs could answer Baxter turned to stare at Killcrazy. "You ate your mum."

"I'm just sayin' if I 'ad a family, or if any of us 'ad one, we'd never see 'em again."

Baxter glanced over the other snake eaters. "But none 'o us _do_."

"It's a theoretical, see? If we _did_ then we _wouldn't_."

"Yeah. But there ain't no point to it, cause all the instantiations of the abstract group Snake Eater don't belong in the category o' havin' a family. Even theoretically it don't make sense."

"But if they did—"

"But we _don't_—"

"Thank you, Baxter and Killcrazy." Briggs waved them quiet, then turned to the blackboard to bring up a graphic of the complex. "The Snake Eater mission objective is to return to the StarTransit™ hub, enter an unflooded tertiary chamber accompanying Hollister and his security personnel and provide additional protection."

Kochanski watched Baxter fish out his shiv – a wooden dowel he'd sharpened and burnt – and start drawing a Venn diagram on the table surface beside Killcrazy, who was continuing the argument in animated hand gestures.

Briggs stopped talking and looked back at the Snake Eaters, fixing Baxter and Killcrazy with a stare. Eventually Baxter looked up and dropped his shiv, then he shook Killcrazy till the man looked up and dropped his argument. Briggs continued, "Mark squad's going to be flanking the security forces." He gestured to a series of smaller rooms radiating off a larger, central structure. "Point squad will be examining these rooms for additional information as well as hostiles. Rimmer'll be leading P-squad."

Kochanski leaned towards Lister. "Who decided that?" She whispered.

Lister jerked his head towards Rimmer.

Kochanski started to her feet. "He isn't in any position—"

"Miss Kochanski, please." Kryten pressed her back in her seat. "We don't have a choice. Thorton ordered it."

Briggs continued as if Kochanski hadn't interrupted. "Mark squad will be taking orders from Security Chief Thorton."

The Canaries groaned, a few going far enough to throw down their enamel cups to a chorus of "Not that goat-fucking asshat", "bastard jackass", "Hollister's pet" and "I got a note from me mum, can I sit out?"

"Quiet!" Barked Briggs, passing a stern glare over the assembled Snakes. "I don't like this any more'n you. All that man has to recommend him is a mean left hook and a ponce background."

"An' Hollister's cock in 'is mouth!" Someone called from the back.

The Snakes burst into laughter. Briggs waved them quiet and continued. "Anyway, I know he's a useless toff git who got his undergrad in beating on the working class—"

"An' beaten off the upper class!" said the same heckler from the back.

"Right. I'm just saying, we have to respect the chain of command. Now, the purpose we were given is to keep Hollister, Thorton and Thorton's men safe. But we're also down there for our own reasons. We need to get this StarTransit™ to help one of our own boys." Briggs nodded at Rimmer.

A low chorus of agreement met Briggs' words. Kochanski glanced back in surprise. Most of the convicts were nodding. She turned to Rimmer. He looked equally surprised.

"So that's it then. In a week we'll be going down. I suggest we get in our hours at the range." Briggs nodded to his crew. "Dismissed."

The Canaries moved to the door, laughing and pounding each other on the back. As they filed past Rimmer each one clapped him on the shoulder, to his visible discomfort.

Briggs sat down on the edge of the table, eyeing each of the Red Dwarfers in turn.

"That was a good thing you did," he said, after the Canaries had left.

"What?" Kochanski shuffled her papers.

"Sticking your necks out and telling us what's up."

"Oh," said Kochanski. "Oh, that. Well, I agree with Rimmer. Everyone has a right to know. Hollister is wrong."

"That over-inflated marshmallow," Rimmer muttered. "He put us in jail because he was afraid for his position. He's keeping quiet for the same reason."

Briggs took Kochanski's hand and shook it. "Thank you." Then he caught her hand in both of his, his head bowed. "I can't tell you how much I appreciate knowing." He shook his head. Kochanski stared at the crown of his close-cropped grey-haired head quizzically. "I know now I'm never gonna see my family. I mean, I thought… I had hope, still. Even though I knew I'd never get out, they were still _there _to get out too. Now…" Briggs looked up, his eyes tearing. "It isn't right what Hollister did. Lying to us, lying to the crew."

Kochanski caught Brigg's arm, looking the man in the eye. "We might be able to get back to Earth. Maybe back to your time–"

Briggs shook his head. "I've got a feeling it isn't gonna work out that way." He leaned forward off the desk. "Things are really messed up. I should tell you—No." He shook his head. "Then again I guess Hollister can't put me in any more trouble then I am."

"What?" Kochanski asked.

"Do you know why I'm on Floor thirteen?" Briggs waved them closer. "I believe you when you say we were resurrected by nanobots or_something_. But I think I was resurrected _in my own past_. I mean, I woke up one morning, went to work, and found Thorton in my office acting like he owned the place. When I called for security to oust him, they arrested _me_. I was the security chief that replaced him, you see?"

Kochanski nodded, then shook her head.

"Hollister was given a dishonorable discharge over this accident that happened. He got an unqualified crew member to perform maintenance on a drive plate. The poor bastard vaporized himself because he didn't know the safety protocols. Thorton covered up Hollister's involvement in the incident. He was discharged too." Briggs leaned back against the black board. "Everyone knows the accident _wasn't_ a real accident. Everyone being crew from my time. We think Hollister killed the poor sod on purpose because he found out something Hollister didn't want anyone to know."

A chair scraped against the floor followed by a thud Kochanski glanced over. Rimmer'd fallen out of his chair. He was back on his feet in an instant, Lister at his elbow, concerned.

Brigs glanced at him. "Something wrong?"

"Yes." Rimmer's face was pale. "That crew member was me."

(ooo)

Kochanski stripped the high heels off her feet as she stood in the threshold to the convict NCO lounge.

Her date with Todhunter had gone well. She'd gotten scads of information out of him and had also managed to enjoy herself. True, the man had fixed her with more then one long, strange, searching look, but that was beside the point, wasn't it? Kochanski puzzled for a moment. In her dimension Todhunter had been married with three kids all the time she knew him, in _this_ dimension he'd gotten divorced.

Either way, he was exactly the type of man she usually went for. Handsome, tall, accomplished, charming and a perfect gentleman.

Yes. He was an excellent choice. Excellent. Kochanski nodded to herself. Arnold was just a fling. She obviously needed a bit more excitement in her life, although _why_ was beyond her. Perhaps she'd start eating carbs.

"Did you sleep with him?"

Kochanski looked up from rubbing her foot. She could see a fringe of mussed curls from over the couch arm. Arnold. "What? How did you know—"

"Your get-up."

Kochanski looked down at her little black dress with the subtle electro-fiber shimmer effect, expensive, that.

"Oh." She looked back at Arnold. "I haven't. Not that it's any of your business."

He sat up. He looked awful. "You will."

"Don't be rude." She sank into one of the love-seats.

"I'm not being rude. Six months after Lister leaves Red Dwarf for good there was a headline in the ship newsletter: 'Navigational Officer Kristine Kochanski marries Second Lieutenant Todhunter."

"You don't know that." Kochanski eyed Arnold. She knew what he was capable of and although she had taken mandatory self-defense courses she'd always hated fighting. So unpredictable and, well, dirty. But, right now, he didn't seem dangerous, just tired and resigned. "Why do you care? I'm your second choice anyway."

Arnold laughed. "Kris, you're not even my third choice."

Ouch. Kochanski blinked. That had hit much, much harder then it should. She stood.

"Goodnight,_Rimmer_," She replied, coldly and turned to the door.

"Wait." Arnold stood and jogged over to catch her arm. "Look, that came out harsh. I mean, life is a series of second and third choices, right? The only difference is that some people make the most of it and others… don't."

Kochanski glanced at Arnold's hand on her arm, then him. "You love Dave."

He looked past her, his shoulders falling.

"So what happens? To me and Todhunter I mean? Not that I believe you know for real, of course." Kochanski added quickly.

"I don't know. Todhunter was posted to his own command a few years later and I assume you went with him. After that… nothing."

"What do you mean nothing? I die? He dies?"

Arnold shook his head.

"Then what?"

"I remember—before we all ended up in deep space—fixing a drive plate. I thought I was going to get a promotion. And I had vacation time coming to me. I was going to Fiji." Arnold looked past her, seeming to age decades from that admission.

"Fiji?"

Rimmer didn't answer.

They sat in silence for a moment.

"You know, even if I did marry Todhunter, it wasn't really me. It was _this_ dimension's Kochanski. So it doesn't mean anything."

Again Rimmer stayed silent.

"So is that what you're trying to say to me?" Kochanski asked. "We're breaking off this… this _thing_?"

Rimmer caught her hand and for a long time he didn't move. When he did it was to cup her face and kiss her.

For the first time it was gentle and heartfelt. A tremor slipped through her.

He pulled back. "Todhunter is better for you."

"I don't..." She mumbled into Arnold's chest.

"You're not coming with us on the drop."

She pushed away. "What? Why?"

"Because I need you here working in Hollister's lab. You and Kryten. I'd make Lister stay if I could."

"You think you're going to die." She grabbed his lapels and shook him. "I'm not going to be left behind. I'm not some smegging damsel in distress."

"No. But you're the smartest. You and Kryten. We can't afford to lose either of you."

Arnold shrugged out of her grip and sat against the love seat's armrest.

"And you're expendable?"

"I don't like it either," he replied. "Do you think I want to be the logical choice? If _you_ were, believe me I would send you down in a heart beat."

Kochanski frowned at that. And, for a moment, the Rimmerism distracted her from the big picture. Then she caught on. "You're being noble."

"I am _not_." Arnold snapped, affronted. "I'm being_logical_."

"Maybe. But somehow your logic always used to have you doing the _safer_ thing."

"That's not nobility. It's just a smegging addiction," Arnold groused. "If you're no longer afraid of fear, there's no courage in facing it."

Kochanski couldn't help beaming at him and laughing as he squirmed.

"So what did you find out from Todhunter?" He asked finally, still unable to meet her gaze.

Kochanski let the change of topic slide. "I found out that you and Briggs are right. There's some sort of time dilation or interdimensional leak going on."

"How'd he find that out?" Rimmer shifted on the armrest.

"The ship chronometer, and questioning other crew members that have been saying the same things as you and Briggs."

Rimmer swayed, before clutching the sofa to steady himself.

Kochanski grabbed his elbow. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine. I just—" He rubbed his temple. "Just dizzy. It's an old memory, centuries old…"

"How?" Kochanski caught his other arm.

"It isn't mine. Not exactly," Rimmer replied. Kochanski could feel his pulse: it was fast.

He continued. "I remember reading the Red Dwarf manifest before it was purged. A coffee machine spat it out at me in lieu of a cup of English Breakfast."

"Who purged it?" Kochanski eased him down into the loveseat. He went without resistance.

"I don't know. Not for sure."

"You said this wasn't your memory? Whose was it?"

Rimmer closed his eyes, his face knitted with lines of effort. "Another Rimmer."

"You mean the old Rimmer? The original Rimmer? Or Ace, or what?"

Rimmer shook his head, his face draining of color as he strained to remember. "An older Rimmer."

"Older? How many of you are there?" Kochanski leaned forward till she could smell the lemon tea on Rimmer's breath.

His head lolled back. "Many," he said. "There are many of me. There are many of Lister too. The manifest said so."

"Yes. From all the dimensions." Kochanski placed her palm against his cheek, checking his eyes.

"No. Not from other dimensions. From this one."

"This one? How? The nanos?"

Rimmer caught the back of her neck, pulling her closer. "There are two kinds of Rimmer. Ace and Arnold and I'm the only one who is both."

"What?" Kochanski leaned out of his grip, which slackened and slipped off.

He closed his eyes. After a moment he opened them again and his gaze was steady if weak. "Sorry. No more answers. Not without blacking out."

Kochanski stood back, eyeing him. "Is the old Rimmer still there?"

Rimmer pulled himself to standing, ignoring her question.

"I mean, the one who used to be part of this body? What happened to him? Did he lose some sort of battle? What?"

Rimmer looked at her, blinking like he couldn't focus. "We're all one person."

"All?" She asked.

He stumbled to the couch and fell onto it.

"Hey?" She sidled over. "That wasn't an answer."

He turned away from her.

She grimaced at his back, and sat on the coffee table by the couch. "Aren't you going to your quarters?"

He shook his head, not raising it from the couch cushions.

"Why?"

"I'm avoiding Lister."

"Really? He's avoiding you too."

Rimmer rose up on his elbows, rubbing his face. "I can't face him. Not alone."

"What happened between you two?"

"It's not that. It's… I remember things that happened _after_ Lister was placed in stasis. After the accident. Those were _his_ memories. I mean, mine. The me that was resurrected by persons unknown." Rimmer coughed. "I sound as daft as Lister after a marijuana gin binge."

"So?"

"I made a choice, Kris." Rimmer buried his head back in the cushion.

Kochanski blew out a breath and sat down beside him. "What are you beating yourself up about now?"

"Fate." Rimmer flipped over on his back. "My fate. His fate."

Kochanski snorted. "There's no such thing."

"No? Then maybe I'm talking about me. The part of me that always stays the same, the part of me that makes me, _me_. The part of me that makes me screw up over and over again. A.J. Rimmer's fate. To always place second because he _thought_ he was going for first."

Kochanski stood and pulled on Rimmer's arm. "Come on. I'm tired of this self-pity jag. You can sleep in my quarters. Kryten doesn't use his bunk. You need some sleep and so does Lister. I'll just pop down to tell him…" She trailed off. "Oh. Right."

"Don't think he'd appreciate you telling him I'm sleeping in your room?" Rimmer grinned.

Kochanski blushed. "I wish he'd just let it go. For a moment."

"Yes?"

"It's creepy. I mean… we're… _related_. Vaguely."

"You're his mum, right? If I understood that whole invitro-insemination-becoming-your-own-father-and-sending-the-baby-back-in-time-to-be-raised-as-you thing correctly?"

Kochanski shuddered and jerked a smirking Rimmer to his feet. "Come on."

(ooo)

"Look, bud. You were getting over her before pointy-head got his hands on her," Cat gestured with his gun. The convicts lining up the ramp to the drop ship lunged out of the gun's line of sight.

Lister caught the barrel and steadied it. "Cat. We went over this."

"Don't worry, bud. It isn't loaded!" Cat grinned.

"What's the point of carrying a gun if it isn't loaded?"

"It still impresses the ladies." Cat waggled his fingers at one of the Canaries entering the drop ship. She smiled back at him, twirling her lip ring suggestively with her tongue.

Lister rolled his eyes and glanced over to the blue midget beside the drop ship. Thorton was escorting Hollister up the blue midget ramp, maneuvering the man around like a giant helium balloon about to take flight. Hollister was giggling and listing from side to side behind his escort of inconspicuously black and beige clad Security staff.

Lister returned to watching the Canaries, bright yellow and highly visible as they were, shuffling into the drop ship. He tried not to look at Rimmer standing by Briggs on the other side of the ramp.

A flash of white caught his eye. He turned to look and saw Kochanski in a lab smock walking—quickly—towards them.

She didn't see him. She was looking at Rimmer.

Lister watched with clenched teeth as she walked up to Rimmer and spoke words he couldn't make out. Rimmer shook his head in response and he saw Kochanski flush with anger.

That made Lister feel a bit better.

Kochanski turned and stalked off. Rimmer waved the last of the Canaries in. Then, like a scene from the pulpy dramas that Lister had always loved to torture Rimmer with, something seemed to break inside her and she spun on her heel, throwing her arms around Rimmer.

Lister turned away, closing his eyes.

"Yaaaoow! I didn't know they could do that on duty!" Cat grabbed Lister's shoulder, shaking it.

Lister peeked.

They'd already broken apart. Kochanski finally noticed them and waved guiltily. Lister lifted his hand in response. Cat waved enthusiastically.

"Let's go," Lister said, not even waiting for Rimmer or Briggs to give the okay. He stepped on the ramp and into the drop ship, glancing back to make sure Cat had swaggered in after him.

As they settled into their seats, Cat poked Lister with his elbow. "Well, at least we know she puts out, bud."


	12. Hard Light

-1Red Dwarf Fanfic: Last Humans

Chapter 11: Light

Summary(flashback): Wherein Rimmer benefits from a Buerocratic screw-up, confronts Ace and meets a very accommodating Lister.

Warnings: Language, torture, sexual situations, apparent character death, violence

Beta: Roadstergal, Zekass, Rack

Chapter Rating: M(16+)

(ooo)

Chapter 11: Light

(ooo)

//Ship Serial No: Silo INDP556790

//Ship's Time: 18:10-06.04-002.343

//AI-List-Silo: UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS ATTEMPT DETECTED

//-UNKNOWN-: -cd AJRIMMER023044H

//-UNKNOWN-: -edit ASSIGNMENT.TXT

//-UNKNOWN-:

//-UNKNOWN-: DECOY/COLONY 023467

//-UNKNOWN-: -swap DECOY INSURGENCYAGENT

//-UNKNOWN-: -exe HIDE

//AI-List-Silo: UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS ATTEMPT LOCATED ON ADMINISTRATION LEVEL BATHROOM 015

//AI-List-Silo: SENDING INTERCEPT FIRETEAM

//AI-List-Silo:

//AI-List-Silo:

Around Rimmer, the deformed holograms started up a keening wail, scrabbling past each other to get away from the light. One shoved and scratched him, trying to get behind his back. He hissed and scooted out of the way.

Rimmer looked up, blinking. Two figures stood in the doorway. For a brief moment he thought he might be rescued.

Then his eyes adjusted and he recognized the matt-black body armor. Guards.

He didn't respond. He let them catch under his shoulders, yanking him to his feet.

"Looks like the number-crunchers changed their mind about you. You've been upgraded to Insurgency Agent," one guard breathed into his neck.

Rimmer didn't look at him. He didn't have anything to say.

They pulled him forward. Rimmer couldn't bring up the desire or the strength to move his legs so he let them drag him.

The route they took was vaguely familiar. Back through the overbuilt doors, back down the long stretches of metal hallways that were cleaner then Red Dwarf's and all the more ugly for it. A lift. Another series of hallways. Rimmer's thoughts took on the consistency of the ship's interior, featureless and empty.

At the end of it, they came to an area with a bit more life. The walls were a light grey and hung with old movie posters.

Rimmer tried to recall the movies. Lister had tormented him with so many of them, yet he hardly could remember a single one. Rimmer didn't like movies, as they reminded him too much of being a dead thing made out of light. Although, even as a hologram, he still had the same love of Russian constructivist film. All those hard edges and harsh exposures, very little humanity to remind him of what he'd lost.

The guards stopped. "What's this?" one barked.

Rimmer looked up.

Ace gaped at him, flanked by two simulant guards. "Rimmer…" He said.

Rimmer tensed. _Son-of-a…_

One of the simulants stepped forwards, a yellow slip in his hand. "I've got me orders to take this hologram to—"

"You sold me out!" Rimmer shrieked. "That pompous smug crap about _saving the universe_… all smeg!" He pulled against his guard's grip, straining to get at Ace and… and…

Ace glanced from him to his hologram guards and back. "I don't know what's going on. I didn't—"

"The smeg!" Rimmer thrashed against his restraints.

"Oi. That's enough." One of Rimmer's guards yanked him back. He fell to his knees. The other guard fished a crumpled yellow paper out of his pocket, waving it at the simulants. "We got orders to put this one—" Rimmer's guard nodded at Rimmer. "—into that room."

"Identical orders." The male simulant sneered. The female—for some reason she had twelve fingers—laughed.

"Then what do we do?" The hologram glanced at Rimmer. "Can't have both in the same—"

The male simulant shot Ace. Ace crumpled to the ground, clutching his neck.

"What are you doin'?" Rimmer's hologramatic guard shouted.

The female simulant brought up her gun and, in quick succession, shot both of Rimmer's guards. They fell, twitching, to the ground. Rimmer watched as they thrashed, digging at the ugly steel _things_ lodged in their necks. Blood sluiced across the floor.

Rimmer looked from them to Ace. _He'd_ gone still. Blood everywhere. Rimmer's knees buckled. He was caught by the female simulant.

"Problem solved. Two guards, one prisoner and one room," said the male simulant with a satisfied grin. He tapped out a code on his wrist com and the room opened.

Rimmer was shoved inside. The door closed behind him. He couldn't keep himself upright. He slid down the door till he was sitting—numb and feverish all at once. He didn't try the door's lock. He didn't _want_ out.

"Arn?"

Rimmer blinked up. _Lister_ stood above him, a towel around his waist.

Lister laughed. "Why you lookin' at me like that, mate?" He walked to the table, humming 'lunar city seven' and pulling off his towel to dry his hair.

Rimmer swallowed. Everything that had happened, and now he was eye-level with Lister's tackle. He leaned his head back against the door.

The heavy house arrest bracelet on Lister's hand clunked against his head as he tried to towel down his dreads. "Ouch!" He rubbed his temple, shaking the other, braceletted hand at Rimmer. "Can you believe this? Just for refusin' to give up me cat."

"Didn't you… didn't you get put in stasis for that?"

"Yeah, man. But the cat escaped into storage. It had kittens. Hollister still wants me to help him find them and I won't. So they put me on indefinite house arrest till they do." Lister grinned, rubbing his plaits dry with the towel. "Hey. How'd you forget that? That I was in stasis?"

Rimmer tried to summon up some spleen towards Lister. All he could manage was a feeble explanation. "It was a long time ago."

Lister snorted. "Yeah, right man. I got out last week." He turned to the sink, picking up his tooth brush and squeezing paste onto the bristles.

"You know where we are don't you?" Rimmer asked, pressing his fingers against the floor for a sense of solidness.

"Red Dwarf." Lister began brushing his teeth with the same overzealous strokes that made Rimmer's molars ache.

"No." Rimmer shook his head slowly. "We're on this Omega Silo ship thing. They're waging war against… I don't know what. They just killed Ace—horribly!—and…"

Lister pulled the toothbrush out of his mouth. "Very funny, Arn. Next you're gonna tell me that these Omegas are aliens or something." He started to brush again, then stopped. "Who's Ace?"

Rimmer ignored Lister's question. Nothing make sense. Where had Ace come from? Or Lister for that matter. Rimmer's stomach sank. "Were you captured?"

"Captured? Yeah, by Hollister." Lister spat out a mouthful of toothpaste and water. "This is getting silly, yeah?" He wiped his mouth with his towel. "There. All clean." Lister grinned and stepped over to Rimmer sheepishly.

Rimmer looked up at him. Lister's hands were behind his back. He was still grinning, but this time with a mischievous warmth.

Rimmer swallowed, his throat was dry and the swallow stuck halfway. He coughed. "Wha—"

Lister knelt and pressed his lips against Rimmer's.

Rimmer jerked back and stood up, stunned.

"What's with yeah, man? We've been at it for a week." Lister caught Rimmer's arm, slipping up close. Rimmer's chest constricted. "We've done it at least a dozen times, includin' the times in the Cap'n's washroom."

"Captain's washroom?" Rimmer jerked back, appalled. "What did the Captain think?"

"Never knew." Lister stepped up again, this time catching Rimmer tight around the waist.

"This is a trick." Rimmer closed his eyes.

Lister lipped his ear. "You opened up the door, mate. Can't close it now."

Rimmer froze. Lister mouth moved down his neck. When Lister met the edge of Rimmer's starched collar, he chuckled and slipped his fingers around Rimmer's tie, loosening it then opening the top button of Rimmer's uniform jacket. "Lets see that beautiful body, yeah? Where were you hidin' it?"

"In my clothes." Rimmer muttered.

Lister laughed. He continued to tease Rimmer's buttons open.

The constriction inside Rimmer's chest unraveled. He felt like he was in free-fall. Rimmer caught Lister around the waist and half carrying him to the bunk. Without thinking he yanked off his jacket, tearing the fabric at the seams, and pressed Lister down into the mattress.

He kissed Lister. A Lister that was open and pliant and giving, and not a bit real. Rimmer knew that. He knew. And he knew he shouldn't get suckered in. It was a trick.

Lister moaned, his hands catching Rimmer's face, pulling him closer as he ground his erection against Rimmer's hips.

A very _good_ trick.

Rimmer threaded his hands between them, his whole body shaking as his fingers tried to find his pants zipper. After a few moments of frustrated groping, his efforts foiled by his body's uncontrollable shudder, Rimmer was gasping and near tears.

"Hey?" Lister leaned forward, catching the man's face. "What's wrong?"

Rimmer shook his head. He wiped his face, managing to scratch his cheeks in the process.

Lister caught Rimmer's hand and his face. "You're really upset, yeah?"

Rimmer coughed. Lister pounded on his back. "Look. If you're right, we'll figure a way out, yeah? You an' me, we'll escape. But we don't have teh deal with it right now." Lister winked, and the mischievous grin was back.

(ooo)

Rimmer stared at the blank metal panel behind Killcrazy's boots. The drop ship shudder along its electro-magnetic tether, sinking deeper and deeper under the surface of the ocean.

Hollister's transport—the BlueMidget—had some recyc and independent propulsion, but the drop ship was just a tin can on a string. A string that could be cut with one strong undersea storm: JMC protocol prohibited transporting convicts on a ship that could be hijacked from its programmed course.

Rimmer wiped his sweating palms on his uniform. The fear was oppressive. The stink of it, on everyone, was making him light-headed.

If they didn't get some action soon, he'd have to take a hit.

Rimmer glanced at Lister. There was still a ghost of a bruise on the man's cheek. Rimmer felt a twinge of guilt. He'd _wanted_ to do it at the time. Wanted to punish Lister for being so indifferent. For pushing him away. For being all over _her_ again. For killing his smegging camphor wood chest.

Behind his eyes he flashed through a thousand memories of Lister, of their last moments together before Red Dwarf was boarded by the same Thresher ship over and over again. Images of Lister, unbelieving, horrified, then resolute. They would fight. And him, cowering in every one, cowering away from reality, like he'd always had.

Rimmer closed his eyes, resting his forehead against the shaft of his gun. It wasn't voxel caliber. It was useless.

(ooo)

For a second night Rimmer didn't sleep. He lay with Lister against his side, the two of them squashed together on the one-man bunk.

Maybe the whole thing had been a dream. Rimmer pressed his nose into Lister's hair. The scouser smelled murky, almost. Earthy. It reminded him of something vague. A moment as a child away from his jostling older brothers, when he'd found a little hidey-hole in his family arboretum and made little rows of mud soldiers and then stamped them down. Over and over.

He closed his eyes. Lister squirmed, stirring up more of that fascinating earthy smell. Rimmer opened his eyes and looked down at him. Do holograms smell?

That must mean…? Rimmer laughed. It was all a dream. Every bit of it. The accident never happened, he never died. Lister never ended up in stasis for millions of years. All of it.

The door opened.

Two guards dressed in uniforms that could easily be mistaken for JMC entered.

The illusion would have been complete, except for the fact that they were completely unsurprised by seeing Lister and Rimmer sleeping in the same bed.

"Smeg," Rimmer whispered.

The guards looked at him meaningfully.

Rimmer began to sit up, pushing at Lister a bit more then necessary, hoping the scouse git would wake up. Lister turned on his back and snored. Rimmer shoved at him harder, half lifting his shoulder from the bed. But Lister merely slumped into the new position like an anesthetized cat.

One of the guards cleared his throat.

(ooo)

Corrugated pipes dangled from the ceiling, pinned in place by lengths of twine and clothes pins. Viscous black fluid dripped from one broken pipe seam, giving off a stink like burning cigarette filters. Rimmer gagged and tried to cover his nose with his uniform sleeve.

Someone caught him by the throat from behind. Rimmer flailed, tried to still the pounding in his ears, and squeezed out a word like a stepped-on squeak toy, "Hello?"

A voice, mutilated by bad audio feedback, hissed in his ear. "New meat." The arm around Rimmer's neck tightened as a hand snaked around Rimmer's waist and grabbed his balls.

"Nice."

"I have a token!" Rimmer brought up the shining plastic disk in a shaking hand.

The… thing behind him twisted, pulling Rimmer down and tightening its hold on the hologram's neck. "Nice." It hissed as it relieved Rimmer of his token and let him go.

Rimmer fell to the ground, coughing. He couldn't be choked to death, not really, but it still hurt like _hell_. "What the smeg do you think you're doing?" Rimmer snapped when he'd finally found his voice. He looked up, hands still clutching his throat.

The thing was a simulant. It looked almost identical to the stubby Brummy git that unhooked Rimmer from the AR suite during his despair-squid induced hallucination, a square face on a square body, with square fingers prodding at fizzing circuitry exposed by a tear down its temple and over one burnt out eye socket. It giggled.

"What are you going to do to me?" Rimmer felt like he'd swallowed an ice cube.

The simulant flicked the token up to its good eye. "Token says… upgrades." It giggled again, then caught Rimmer's neck in a vice grip and dragged him bodily through the mess of shorn metal paneling, live wires and smoking circuit boards.

The simulant slammed Rimmer down onto the salvaged remains of a dentist chair. A light above it blinked on and off haphazardly, bits of red and yellow curled plastic tubing dangled off it and into Rimmer's face.

"Wait? What are you doing?" Rimmer protested, trying to push out of the chair as the simulant grabbed his wrist. The grip was so tight Rimmer felt his fingers go numb. It buckled a restraint over Rimmer's pinned wrist and reached up to tug down a length of plastic tubing, tying his other arm down with it.

"What the token says, bulb." The simulant flicked it at Rimmer's chest. "The boss-bulbs want to use you as an Insurgency Agent." It picked up a psyscan and ran it over Rimmer – one of the old models with the dodgy hand-held I/O unit, upgraded by a series of glue-welded attachments that stuck out from the main body like post-modern window-boxes.

The scanner offered a low beep followed by a series of hex codes in bleeding green characters. The simulant grimaced at it. "Piece of shit." It hit the psyscan and ran the scanner over Rimmer again. Once more the scanner offered a beep and the same sequence of hex codes. The simulant spit at it, paused in thought and then hit its _own_ head.

Rimmer sighed. "Look, can't we talk—"

The simulant picked up a length of greasy rag and shoved it in Rimmer's mouth. The taste alone nearly ran Rimmer to the edge of unconsciousness. He tried to work his tongue around the gag without letting any sludge slip down his throat.

The simulant scanned him again and threw the scanner down in disgust. "What piece of crap did they send me?" It glared at Rimmer like he was the simulant's family rottweiler and he'd just coughed up part of the simulant's mum, but, more importantly, _all_ of the simulant's bullocks.

In the silence Rimmer managed to work the gag out of his mouth, then he set about trying to work out the taste. Rimmer spat, over and over, getting nowhere—watching as the simulant spasmed, its mouth gaped open and closed like one of Lister's robotic goldfish. Then Rimmer noticed a rhythmic chant emanating from its chest, a series of words – "one, zero, zero, one, one" – that Rimmer recognized from the time Kryten was forced to spot wield his groinal attachment to a leaky sewer pipe and fill in as the Starbug waste recyc system for an entire week. The simulant was swearing in binary.

"What's wrong?" Rimmer asked, the ice cube slowly growing into an iceberg.

"One-one-one-zero!" The simulant jerked out of its spasm and stared at Rimmer, its one eye glassy. "Your are dog-breath, metrics crap!"

Rimmer tried to parse. "Er, what?"

The simulant slammed a fist into the side of its face. "Your metrics are crap, dog-breath! They expect me to pull a miracle out of my stainless steel arse." The simulant slapped a wide button on the wall.

A robotic arm ending in a spike arced from the ceiling, slicing into Rimmer's chest at the solar-plexus. Rimmer opened his mouth to scream. Nothing came out.

"Fucking bureaucrats. Don't understand art." The simulant turned back, catching the spike impaling Rimmer, gave it a few solid yanks then punched a button. The arm bore down, and something wriggled deeper into Rimmer's chest, latching onto his light bee with a squelching sound.

Rimmer's eyes rolled back, he felt the blessed edge of consciousness with glowing, dreamy fingers.

"Ay, ay. No you don't."

Rimmer was wrenched back into awareness in a burst of electronic static. He writhed against the chair as his hologrammatic wound oozed thick, dark blood and tried to knit itself, futily, around the impaling spike.

"Now." The simulant pounded Rimmer's chest. Rimmer groaned. "Let's see if we can polish a turd." It gave the robotic arm a pat and turned to kneel by a box on the floor.

Rimmer couldn't keep the simulant in focus. Everything around him swum as his eyes watered.

The simulant rummaged in the box, humming to himself.

Rimmer's breath hissed through his clenched teeth. He wanted to faint, he wanted to.

The simulant cackled and stood, a half dozen LTs clenched to its chest. "A challenge." It skipped back to the table and tossed the LTs down on Rimmer's chest. It picked up one and pressed it against Rimmer's cheek, leering. "Hologrammatic upgrades." He danced back a bit, giving the LT a kiss, then, in one smooth arc, he smacked it into a slot on the robotic arm. "Psychological conditioning."

"Nn…" Rimmer gasped.

The simulant caught his jaw and leaned close, leering. "You should thank me, bulb. Today I'm your best friend." He spun on his heel and slammed his palm against the robotic arm.

Something jarred deep within Rimmer, shaking loose a flood of memories.

He'd been a private. How had he forgotten that? A private in the Space Core. Rimmer remembered basic training, killing himself just to be last in _everything_. He'd earned himself humiliating dressing-downs by his sergeant as he failed. The sergeant was the kind of man Rimmer had always feared and grudgingly respected, a working class bully with a thick neck and a short fuse. The man had started out screaming so hard he was spitting but by the end of four weeks his sergeant had stopped bothering, just passing a cold eye over Rimmer's continued failure.

Rimmer shook his head. "Is this real?" He gasped. "I was a failure." Rimmer felt a stab of anger. "Is that supposed to help me?"

The simulant laughed and slapped the robotic arm again. Servos whirred and relays clicked.

Rimmer was reminded of something else. That sergeant Rimmer'd been cleaning the latrines with a broken toothbrush, long past curfew and desperate to finish, when he'd heard someone screaming outside. He'd gotten off his knees and looked out the latrine vent. That sergeant was being chewed out by his superior officer, a Captain who was obviously drunk. The Captain finished and stared at the Sergeant for a long time. "God you're ugly." The man, a young, upper-class bastard, swayed. "Drop to your knees."

The sergeant did so.

Rimmer watched in increasing amusement and horror as the Captain forced that god-awful Sergeant to give him head.

The next day some small, secret happiness gave Rimmer an extra boost. He kept up with the pack. He hit his targets. He remembered his gun assembly drill. He rappelled without pissing his pants.

Rimmer tested the strength of his restraints. Maybe…

The simulant grinned. "Better." He yanked the LT out of the robotic arm and picked another one up from Rimmer's chest. "Now some Agnoid conditioning." He leaned his elbow into Rimmer's side, sending a wave of pain through Rimmer's chest. Rimmer's jaw clenched.

Without looking away from Rimmer's gaze, the simulant slipped the next LT in and punched the robotic arm control.

Something slithered up out of Rimmer's subconscious. There was nothing human about the _thing_ that slid through his mind and skittered down dark pathways in his memory. He wanted to kill and keep on killing. It gave him pleasure, a pleasure that became a driving, relentless itch when it was not fed. He _needed_ to kill. To feel his enemy's life flutter against his hand, like a trapped bird he would free.

Ways of moving, instinctive tactics, natural balance settled into Rimmer's twitching muscles and flexed along with his tendons. A certain low confidence slipped in as well; Rimmer knew he could handle anything because he didn't really care.

Rimmer caught the end of the tubing tying his hand down. He could feel that it wasn't hard light. Why had he assumed before that he couldn't break it?

The simulant poked Rimmer's wounded chest.

Rimmer convulsed and felt himself flutter towards unconsciousness again. Rimmer fought to stay aware. He needed to plan a way out; he couldn't let himself miss anything.

"What's next?"

"Just the standard spritzer. A vaccine." The simulant punctured a length of tubing running down the arm with a hypo. He depressed the plunger.

A stinging sensation radiated through Rimmer. It intensified till he felt sweat bead on his skin, then it tapered off to nothing.

Rimmer snapped the rubber tubing holding his arm and caught up one of the simulant's LTs. With a flick of his wrist he flung the LT and hit the button controlling the arm. The LT shattered and the robotic arm retracted with a sucking sound. Rimmer screamed, then, finally, blessed relief as his holoflesh fulfilled its healing subroutines and knit together.

The simulant stood. "Ingrate! Why'd you go and break my property?"

Rimmer pulled at the remaining restraint. It was some sort of hard-light re-enforced system. He couldn't break it. His forearm was stuck.

The simulant lunged for him. He managed to kick it in the head, sending it wind milling backwards, sparks flying from its injured eye.

"Son bitch of a. Free was I you going to." The simulant spat, then hammered its head with a broken length of iron piping. "I was going to free you!"

"No need, squire." Rimmer wrenched a thick metal sliver from the chair and fished in the hard light restraint for a release catch. It popped and he jumped off the table.

The simulant watched him then laughed till he was choking. "Ol' Pap'pers Ex'Tur'a said no one could red splat a metric black-liner like you. But I did." The simulant licked his lips. "I guess I can unload my exhaust filter all over his scrap heap over that one. Boss-bulbs wanted an Insurgency Agent. I gave them one." It looked Rimmer up and down. "You might make twenty years, though. That much patching? Prolly be insane after ten years. The vaccine won't help."

"What did it do to me?" Rimmer watching the simulant warily.

The simulant broke into a wide grin, "Gives you a bit more… job satisfaction." It took several jerking strides towards Rimmer. "Now you go to Quality Assurance." It grinned toothlessly, its eye giving off a flurry of sparks, and then it shoved Rimmer towards the door. "Good luck, bulb. I'm a walk in the park compared to them."

(ooo)

Rimmer limped towards his quarters. He held his right arm in his left. Skin had been burnt off the sole of his left foot and his right bicep. Both were sweating lymph as they healed. He remembered them applying electrodes to those spots, but after that… nothing.

His body had been upgraded. A man in a lab suit had attempted to explain it to him, and a class full of new inductees, with a lecture on "voxel simulations" and "haptic illusions." Rimmer had slumped in his chair, hiding behind his hand, as the other—captured and processed—holograms around him nodded in understanding. The theory behind it all was beyond him.

All he knew was, now, he was as human now as he would ever get _dead_. Voxel holograms shed voxels like a normal human shed cells—mucus, dead skin, blood, sweat, urine, lymph.

Now he needed the Omega Group to survive. They'd created the technology and they were the only suppliers. And he needed to replenish his voxel stores by at least a cup a day.

Rimmer idly repeated the tag line, "Omega Voxels. As close to living as dead can get."

One of his guards tapped in the security code on his room, opening the door. He slipped inside, turning to watch the door close, his spirits lifting despite it all. There was Lister. Granted it was some insane version of Lister that actually _loved_ Rimmer in a way that Rimmer hadn't realized he wanted to be loved, but… Rimmer's shoulders slumped. He wasn't strong enough to resist.

"Arn?"

Rimmer turned. Lister stepped out of the shower, a towel around his waist.

Rimmer stared at his former bunkmate, a sickening feeling of deja vu sweeping over him.

Lister laughed. "Why you lookin' at me like that mate?" He walked to the table, humming 'lunar city seven' and pulling off his towel to dry his hair.

Rimmer caught the wall, feeling faint.

The heavy house arrest bracelet Lister had on his hand clunked against his head. "Ouch!" He rubbed his temple, shaking the other, braceletted hand at Rimmer. "Can you believe this? Just for refusin' to give up me cat."

"You." Rimmer swallowed. "You told me that yesterday."

Lister laughed, rubbing his plaits dry. "You're taking the piss, yeah?"

"You told me that your cat had kittens and you were put under house arrest indefinately until you agreed to help Hollister find them."

"Peterson told you, huh?" Lister turned to the sink, picking up his tooth brush and squeezing paste onto the bristles.

"No._You_ told me."

"Nah, mate. I didn't see you till just now."

"But you did."

"You must have dreamed it, yeah." Lister began to brush. The sound of it put Rimmer's teeth on edge.

"You don't remember yesterday, when we met? I told you about the Omegas." Rimmer limped over to the bunk.

Lister pulled the toothbrush out of his mouth. "What? Omegas? Isn't that a cricket team? What's wrong with your leg?"

"You're telling me you don't remember?" Rimmer rubbed his eyes. It didn't make sense. "Did you get a concussion?"

"Concussion?" Lister spat out a mouthful of toothpaste and water. "This is getting silly, yeah?" He wiped his mouth with his towel. "There. All clean." Lister grinned and stepped over to Rimmer sheepishly.

Rimmer looked up at him. Lister's hands were behind his back. He grinned mischievously.

Deja vu swept over Rimmer again. Lister'd done this before. _Exactly_ this. "Sto—"

Lister leaned forward and pressed his lips against Rimmer's.

Rimmer jerked back. "Stop! I—"

"What's with yeah, man? We've been at it for a week." Lister caught Rimmer's arm, slipping up close till Rimmer could feel his breath on his chin. Lister nuzzled his jaw. "We've done it at least a dozen times, includin' the times in the Cap'n's washroom."

"Stop, please." Rimmer whined. He was too sore and tired to push the man away, and too confused. "You did this all yesterday!"

"Yeah." Lister grinned. "An' I'll do it today and tomorrow and the day after that." His hands roamed over Rimmer's body.

Rimmer caught Lister's upper arms, holding him away. Rimmer hissed as the motion tugged against his injured skin. "No. You don't understand. You did all this. _Exactly_ this. Something's wrong."

"Nothin's wrong! Enjoy it while it lasts, yeah?" Lister tried to duck his head in for a kiss.

"You're not getting it, Lister." Rimmer's throat started to close off as_it_ slowly dawned on him. "You've no memory of _anything_ but Red Dwarf, do you?"

Lister looked at him strangely. "Why would I? I ain't been on shore leave since Titan."

"You don't remember yesterday. You won't remember _today_." Rimmer swallowed, trying to fill the yawning emptiness in his chest. "You won't remember _me_."

"Course I will." Lister chuckled. Then the smile dropped off his face, replaced by concern. "Hey. What's wrong?" He caught Rimmer's face. "You're really upset, yeah?"


	13. Author's Note

-1Author's Note:

I've made a lot of changes to the story, hopefully for the better. The later chapters will make more sense in the context of the re-written earlier ones, so please re-read the beginning. (I've gotten rid of all the other author's notes: they're now actual content. So if you start reading with the chapter after this Author's Note, I think you'll find it very confusing.)

Moving on to the good stuff, I wanted to say something about why I chose to write this story in the way that I did. A while back I read 'Wicked' by Gregory Maguire. I thought it was faboo as a re-interpretation of Frank Baum's works. I figured the rationale behind it was that Baum's stories of OZ were the stories you'd tell children. Maguire's Wicked is the story for adults.

Ever since I've been fascinated by the idea of fan fiction in terms of telling the original story for a different audience. In Red Dwarf's case, the TV shows are sort of like… stories you'd tell at the bar, exaggerated for comedic effect, a lot of the logic glossed over yet with the occasional moment of honesty. The books are more like the real story(for the most part). Let's face it, a lot of the stuff that happens in Red Dwarf is, once you get beyond the comedic-level, very, very dark.

I wrote this fan fiction to be more in line with the books rather then the TV series--dark, cynical and despairing at times. The books also followed the time line of the TV series in a vague way; touching on some events, ignoring others, and knitting them together into a more coherent narrative. I tried to follow the series a little more tightly, but the continuity isn't completely there.

The Lister in this story isn't exactly the same as the Lister in the TV series. I see him more as book-Lister; a darker, less goofy version with serious 'letting-go' issues. (Didn't anyone else think that scene where 60-year old Lister has created an enormous homage to Kochanski in 'Better then Life' is sort of pathetic and creepy?)

Thanks to my betas (who all did a great job with this enormous and unwieldy project). Any problems with grammar and spelling are strictly my fault. Likewise with continuity.

Merry Christmas!


	14. Drop

Red Dwarf Fanfic: Last Humans

Chapter 12: Drop

Summary: Wherein the Snake Eaters are betrayed, Rimmer is shot(again) and Todhunter takes a stand.

Warnings: Language, extreme character endangerment, violence

Beta: Rack

Chapter Rating: T(PG-13)

(ooo)

Chapter 12 : Drop

(ooo)

//Ship Serial No: Red Dwarf JMC66350

//Ship's Time: 09:21-06.11-002.343

//AI-Holly-Executive: INTERCEPTING TRANSMISSION FROM STARTRANSIT™ HUB TO SILO INDP556790

//AI-Holly-Executive: UNABLE TO BREAK ENCRYPTION

The drop ship whined to a stop. It continued to shudder in bursts as the docking locks sealed shut. Lister wiped his sweating face brow and watched the drop ship's door.

It opened. Musty air gusted in. Rimmer stood and waved the rest of the Snake Eaters up. The cavity beyond the doors was dim, lit only by glowing green emergency el tape in eerie hieroglyphic patterns.

"It's routine," said Briggs. "A routine drop. Get in, get what we need done, get out."

Rimmer half turned, making a series of gestures with his hand.

Nigel, a Snake Eater with so much metal threading through the flesh of his face he looked like a mechanical hedgehog, hopped up beside Rimmer, lifting the Snake Eaters' ancient psyscan. With a few pumps of the wind-up crank, the scanner coughed to life.

Nigel swept the dark hall beside Rimmer as they entered. At one point Nigel stopped and jerked his head towards the wall. Rimmer nodded.

Nigel slapped the wall.

The lights came up. A small tremor followed.

Lister blinked in the sudden brilliance, unable to make sense of anything around them. When he could see again Rimmer had moved further off down the docking bay.

The bay was big, not as big as the bays on the Red Dwarf, but big enough to house the Starbug comfortably. Debris littered the partially flooded floor: shredded steel crates were pockmarked and singed. Lister stepped over to the nearest crate. Laser blasts and the splintering… looked like someone had pulled off hunks of the metal with their bare hands. Lister shivered. Another shudder rocked the docking bay.

Rimmer picked his way over to the far wall. "Clear." His voice echoed back.

Lister trotted up. "Simulants. Or something else that can claw through steel."

Rimmer nodded and looked at Nigel.

"I've swept the main chamber. No life signs, electronic or otherwise." Nigel gestured to the psyscan.

Rimmer pulled the door release lever and the bay exit slid open.

"Point team. Let's go." Rimmer ducked through the door.

Lister caught his jacket. "Shouldn't we wait for Hollister?"

Rimmer glanced back.

He was sweating. Lister felt a tremor shudder through Rimmer through his grip on the man's jacket. "Rimmer…"

"There's no point waiting."

"Is that yeh talkin'?" Lister narrowed his eyes at Rimmer.

Rimmer shrugged out of his grip and continued through the door into the dark beyond.

Lister half turned and waved the rest of point team through. Baxter, Killcrazy and Nigel followed him.

"Nigel." Rimmer waved the Snake to his side. "Feel free to light our way."

(ooo)

Lister radioed Briggs. "The main chamber is secured. We found an uplink in one of the side chambers. Yeh can move in."

"Copy."

Lister closed the link and turned to look at Rimmer. He was shuddering visibly, half leaning on the chamber wall.

The rest of point team had pulled up some crates and sat in a circle, playing a game of tiddly winks with shotgun shells.

Lister edged up to Rimmer. "How yeh doin', man?"

Rimmer's hand jerked away from his face. He looked down at Lister, eyes a bit too wide. "What?"

"I asked yeh how you're doin'."

"Oh." Rimmer looked at his shaking hands. "I…"

"What's wrong, man?" Lister caught Rimmer's shoulder.

Rimmer swallowed. "It's the tension."

Lister turned back to the others, taking a half step towards them. "Let's go keep 'em company—"

"No." Rimmer pressed against the wall, one hand over his eyes.

"What's up with yeh?"

Rimmer swallowed hard and rubbed his face. "I'm sorry."

Lister dropped his hands, staring at Rimmer. He didn't say anything.

Rimmer rubbed the back of his neck. "I—"

"Yeh were strung out…"

"I didn't want…" Rimmer lay back against the wall, sliding down it till he was sitting.

Fat drops of sweat slid down his temples.

Lister glanced back at the other Canaries then squatted next to Rimmer. "Put it out of yer mind." Lister picked a smoke out of his breast pocket then paused and offered one to Rimmer. "I know yeh smoke sometimes, I've seen yeh do it before your exams."

Rimmer took it without a word.

Lister lit his and took a drag. "Good time as any to get back in the habit." He leaned back against the wall, shoulder to shoulder with Rimmer. After a moment he turned towards Rimmer and offered him a light with a quirk of his lips.

Rimmer placed the tip of his cig against the tip of Lister's. He inhaled, puffing with a careful intensity that made Lister grin. _Greenhorn._

Lister caught Rimmer's cheek, pulling his own cig out from his lips. Without thinking Lister grabbed the other man and drew him into a hug.

"What you doin'." Rimmer slurred, not used to speaking with a smoke hanging from his lips.

"Nothin'." Lister replied. Rimmer's stubble scraped against Lister's cheek— when had he stopped being clean-shaven? Rimmer stank too. He'd been sweating like a dog. Lister rammed his nose against Rimmer's ear, breathing deep. No more cheap after-shave, just damp, pungent Rimmer.

Rimmer pushed him off and Lister withdrew, his fingers clenching. "What'd—"

"Shh…" Rimmer hushed him, putting out his cig on the floor. And staring into the dark.

"What's wrong—"

Rimmer shushed him again, still staring into the chamber.

Lister narrowed his eyes, trying to make something out in the black. He shrugged and turned to look into the main chamber. He watched Hollister, Thorton, the ship security and Mark team file through the entrance. The rest of point team continued to play tiddly winks, although the game had turned violent. Nigel was trying to cough up a tiddly-wink; Baxter had Killcrazy in a headlock.

Ignoring the rumble Lister turned back to Rimmer. "Hollister's here." His brow drew when he realized the man had moved off into the dark side chamber in complete silence. "Rimmer?" Lister called, stumbling to his feet and following him in.

At the uplink Lister paused, glancing at Holly's watch. It was socketed into the uplink. On it's screen, in between strobing frames of downloaded info he saw a flash of the O-G AI's ugly grin. Lister grimaced and scurried after Rimmer.

"Is somethin' wrong?" Lister asked as he caught up.

"I don't know. I thought I saw something in there." Rimmer brought up his flashlight. "Reminded me."

Behind Lister a series of distorted electrical interference noises echoed through the main chamber. "Is this thing yeh remembered dangerous?"

"Very," Rimmer replied, sweeping his flashlight over the chamber's floor. It was littered with debris.

(ooo)

Hollister glanced around the main chamber nervously. He was about due for another valium topper but he didn't want to administer it in front of the Canary crew.

"Identification, please." Said the StarTransit™ hub computer.

"Captain Frank Hollister of the JMC Red Dwarf." Hollister mopped sweat from the back of his neck with his kerchief. "Ident number six six oh four seven eight nine four."

"Signiture scan cleared. You may proceed with your instructions."

Hollister stepped back and waved Todhunter forward. The man knelt by the uplink, pulling out a palm size computer that Hollister did not understand the function of and started tapping in strings of gibberish.

Hollister turned away from him and scanned the Canaries forming a wall around him and his security forces. Thorton had said they'd have twenty minutes on the outside.

(ooo)

"Rimmer!" Lister pulled on Rimmer's jacket, gesturing to a grisly find on the floor. A skull with el tape markings.

Rimmer's eyes narrowed as he looked at the skull.

"That can't be good, yeah?" Lister muttered.

"It's human." Rimmer replied. "Not GELF."

"I thought this place was unstaffed."

Rimmer knelt, poking the skull with the butt of his rifle. Lister couldn't help wincing.

"This isn't a 23rd century human." Rimmer nodded at the dull glint of metal attached to the skull. That looks like a thirtieth millennial implant." He poked at the skull with the muzzle of his rifle.

Lister swallowed, feeling queasy. "How do yeh know?"

The skull fell apart under Rimmer's prodding. "General knowledge."

Distantly Lister heard the groan of tortured metal. The floor shuddered.

"Listen to that." Rimmer whispered, his flashlight swept the ceiling of the chamber.

"Yeah? Some sort of storm?"

"Worse, miladdio. Sounds like the bulkhead's compromised." Rimmer's eyes narrowed as his flashlight revealed a reflective panel. "Looks like the automatic systems are compensating."

"Eh?" Lister replied.

Rimmer leaned against the wall of the chamber, setting his rifle beside his leg. Lister saw a flash of Ace, the only thing missing was Rimmer pulling out a cheroot and lighting up.

Rimmer caught Lister's stare. Instead of Ace's warm confidence, his eyes held a low, reptilian excitement. "The matter transporter relay is powering up already. Nothing we can do. The Agnoids would never provide a clue like that—" He nodded at the skull, "—until it was already too late."

"Agnoids?"

"Yes Listy. We're in the middle of a trap." Rimmer continued. "Thorton ordered me to set EMP charges. That's why I took Point-team. I suppose he knew."

"What triggered it?"

Rimmer looked back. "Just being here."

Lister felt dread creep through him. "What do we do?"

"Do?" Rimmer leaned his temple against the wall. "We die."

"What, all of us?"

Rimmer turned back to him. His expression was blank, except for an ugly grin.

"That's it then?" Lister asked.

"If we're lucky it'll be staggered. One sub-chamber then the other will be filled with captured Agnoids, brought in by the transit relay. If we're not lucky, they'll all arrive at once. They'll try to make for the relay station in the docking bay. From there they can get aboard Red Dwarf."

"Can we fight them?"

"This group? We'd last a few minutes, I suppose."

"Then we've got to warn them!" Lister flicked on his com link.

Rimmer covered Lister's mouth with a hand. "Hold off, squire."

"Did you do this on purpose?"

Rimmer removed his hand, quizzical.

"Yeh wanted a fight, yeah? Did yeh lead us into this on purpose?"

Rimmer didn't answer. He turned away from Lister, tapping on his com panel.

"I never thought I'd say this but I miss the old Rimmer. At least he was too much of a coward to lead us into a trap for his own nutter fun." Lister wanted to punch him. Instead he leaned his head into the wall and swore in frustration.

"Briggs? We have a problem. I've set the charges but if Hollister uses them, the hull will collapse."

Lister couldn't make out Briggs' response. It was just an electronic whine.

"No. We'd all drown."

Another pause.

"The Snake Eaters are dead either way." Rimmer clicked off his com. "Let's go." He caught Lister's arm, pushing him towards the exit.

"What's goin' on?" Lister pulled out of his grip.

"Those EMP charges can take out the Agnoids, but they'll also take out the machines compensating for the hull breech. We'd be underwater in minutes."

"Do we have time to get outta here?"

"The EMP would knock out the drop ship and we don't have the means to boost it. We were never meant to escape."

Lister stopped dead. "Didja know?"

"Did I know what?" Rimmer stepped back to catch his arm.

Lister jerked his arm out of the way. "Didja know this was a trap?"

"What?"

"Did yeh know that this was suicide? Is that why yeh made sure Kris didn't come?" Lister felt flush with anger and… _hurt._ "Yeh dragged us all into this death wish of yours."

Rimmer's mouth tightened.

"Is that all this is?" Lister pressed a fist to his lips. "A way for yeh to get yer rocks off?"

"I didn't think Hollister would try to kill me... Again. I was worried, yes. But I didn't think he'd actually do it." Rimmer stared at the floor then, in a burst of motion he stepped behind Lister, grabbed his shoulder and started marching him towards the side chamber entrance. "I want to live as much as I ever did." Rimmer's breath was hot against his ear. "But now it's fun figuring out _how_."

(ooo)

Lister rammed his shoulder into the metal side of the crate, shifted it into place beside the others. With the Snake Eaters he'd created a semi-circle barricade around the entrance to the docking bay. Killcrazy stood beside him, dusting off his hands and grinning. "What we need that for then?"

"So we don't get shot." Lister knelt behind a crate, checking the angle.

"It gets in the way of fightin'."

Lister shook his head. "Go see if Briggs needs any help, yeah?"

"I ain't movin'." Killcrazy nodded past the barricade. "They'll be comin' through and I've got first dibs."

"Then keep watch and _I'll_ go see if Briggs needs any help." Lister stood. As soon as he stepped out of the way, Killcrazy jumped on the barricade and leveled his rifle at the nearest side chamber entrance with a giggle.

Briggs was talking to Rimmer beside the entrance to the docking bay. A few paces off, a very pale and sweaty Hollister issued frantic commands to a calm-but-beginning-to-get-flustered Todhunter, who was tapping as fast as he could into a small computer balanced on his knee.

Lister bit the inside of his lip, suddenly reminded. _Holly_. He looked back at the entrance to the uplink chamber. He'd left Holly there. Smegging dumb, that.

Lister glanced back at Rimmer. The man had given the impression that the simulants would be flooding in _any second_. But they hadn't come yet. Lister chewed his lip and glanced back across the main chamber. Then back to Holly.

He vaulted the barricade, stumbling a bit as he landed on the other side, and pelted towards the uplink chamber.

"Lister!" He heard Rimmer call after him, and ignored it.

It was ten breaths before he tripped to a stop beside Holly's uplink. "Holly." He whispered, cupping the uplink. He watched the readouts flash, but Holly seemed otherwise blank. Cursing, Lister started flipping switches and twisting locks, trying to remember the sequence Rimmer had used to interface Holly with the uplink. Lister prayed he wasn't doing Holly any damage.

After a few more rotated dials and pressed levers, Holly slipped out. "Gotcha!" He grinned.

A groaning rumble shook the chamber. Another ship quake.

Holly's screen was still blank. Lister shoved Holly into his vest pocket. The part of him that unerringly prophesized danger was almost incoherent with babbling.

Lister looked back over the main chamber. It was clear. He could run for it. He'd done it.

"What do you think you're doing?" Rimmer pulled Lister out of the side chamber and pushed him towards the barricade.

"It's okay man. I got Holly!" Lister beamed.

"Move. Run." Rimmer half lifted him with the force of his shove. They sprinted towards the barricade together.

Ten breaths, thought Lister. No time at all.

A bee buzzed past his ear. Lister stopped, startled. _Bee?_ A smoking hole was gouged out of the floor at his feet. It spat liquefied metal.

Rimmer barreled into him, sending them both to the ground. Lister was about to turn to yell at him, when he realized his face was wet. He wiped the wet off and looked at his hand. It was covered in blood. He looked back at Rimmer; he was face down, blood spreading over his canary jacket.

More shots gouged the floor around Lister., one close enough to singe the hair on the back of his arm.

_Get up. Get out._ Lister caught Rimmer under his shoulders and hauled him up. Lister ran, Rimmer leaning heavily on him but keeping up.

Lister shoved Rimmer past the barricade and felt hands pulling him in and down. He looked up. Killcrazy was screaming like a maniac, standing fully exposed on top of a crate, and emptying his clip at the advancing simulants. The rest of the Snake Eaters were taking shots from behind the barricade, Baxter doing his best, it seemed, to cover Killcrazy's rampage.

Nigel knelt beside Lister; he had an emergency kit in his hands.

"Can you stop the bleeding?" Lister asked, his hands pressed against Rimmer's chest. Rimmer was pale.

Nigel shrugged.

Lister caught a flash of beige movement out of the corner of his eye. He turned to look. Thorton and his men were disappearing through the docking bay doors.

The bulkhead.

Lister jumped to his feet and ran towards the docking doors, skidding through them before they closed and pelting after Hollister and his security forces.

Hollister glanced back, saw Lister, and stepped up the pace, walking as fast as his wobbling mass would allow.

Lister caught up to him just before Hollister exited the docking doors to the blue midget.

"Sir!" Lister leaned on his knees, panting. "You can't use the EMP. The bulkhead will collapse. The complex will flood."

Hollister's eyes shifted nervously around the docking bay. "I'm afraid it can't be helped, Mister Lister."

Lister straightened. "We need to get out of here, sir."

"Mister Lister. If the enemy is allowed to reach the matter transport relay in the docking bay, they will be able to board Red Dwarf. The Canaries have to stay and hold them off till we're in the clear to use the EMP charges. Now, I have to go!" Hollister half turned.

"But Sir! If yeh use the EMP the drop ship will be dead. And we can't wait for another!" Lister caught Hollister's arm. Thorton punched the butt of his rifle into Lister's elbow and Lister recoiled.

"Might I remind you, Mister Lister, that according to Space Core regulations convict crew members are required to sacrifice themselves for the benefit of non-convict crew? Even disregarding issues of rank." Hollister nodded at Thorton, who began the process of unlocking the docking bay doors to the blue midget. "Now, Mister Lister, I suggest you start obeying your orders and go back to cover our retreat."

Lister looked up, his cheek twitching. "Yeh knew, didn't yeh?"

Hollister didn't answer, instead he stepped through the docking doors. "Mister Thorton, lay in a course."

"Sir?" Todhunter looked from Lister to Hollister. "Did you know?"

Hollister stopped and turned. "Did I know _what_, Mister Todhunter?"

"Did you know the bulkhead was compromised, Sir?" Todhunter moved to stand beside Lister.

Hollister and Thorton exchanged a glance. "I didn't know, Mister Todhunter. And if I find out that Mister Thorton knew," Hollister glared at his security chief, "I'll be very sure to issue a reprimand. Now, get aboard, Mister Todhunter."

"No." Todhunter shook his head.

"This is insubordination, Mister Todhunter." Hollister's lips flattened into a line. "Get aboard, and that is an order!"

"I'm afraid I can't do that, sir. I couldn't live with myself knowing I abandoned these men to die."

"Todhunter!" Hollister threatened. "These are just convicts. Murders, thugs,_cannibals_."

"He isn't." Todhunter inclined his head towards Lister, then pulled himself to his full height, and looked firmly at Hollister. "I believe you are unfit for command. As an officer of the JMC, I'm charging you with misuse of your command authority, specifically your disregard of JMC protocol and your violations of the United Planets Human Rights Charter. You sent him," Todhunter nodded at Lister, "to jail on false pretenses based on an illegal non-consensual psychotropic test administered to Mister Rimmer."

Hollister went pale, he gaped. "How could you kno— lies! All lies!" Hollister poked one fat finger into Todhunter's face. "This is mutiny. Thorton, put Mister Todhunter under arrest." Hollister nodded at Thorton. Then a slippery little smile slid across his face. "You can dispose of the prisoner at your discretion." He turned back and disappeared into the Blue Midget.

Thorton grinned and waved the rest of the security forces on. Todhunter took a step towards him. Thorton raised his rifle. "Uh-uh. From this moment on you're an honorary Canary."

Todhunter glared. "You son of a bitch."

"You wanted to stay anyway. Or maybe that was just for show, Mister Moral High Flyer?" Thorton laughed and punched the docking door release. Just before they closed he threw Todhunter a rifle. "You might make it to the end of the five minute count down with that. Good luck, former Second Lieutenant Todhunter."

Todhunter's jaw tensed as the docking doors closed.

Lister looked at Todhunter. "Sorry, mate."

Todhunter shook off his fury and shock. He glanced at his watch. "Right. Five minutes. Let's make the best of them."

(ooo)

Lister slipped through the docking bay exit and into chaos.

He saw a simulant staggering behind the barricade, several more dead at its feet. Cat had latched onto the simulant's back, his teeth buried in the simulant's neck. With a twist Cat wrenched his teeth out and the simulant went down, twitching.

"Cat!" Lister called from behind a crate.

Cat whirled around with a hiss. Lister jumped back, startled. "Cat?" He asked.

"Oh, hey bud!" Cat relaxed, loosing his feral look and knelt beside Lister. "Can you believe this?" He motioned towards his jacket. "Baxter bled all over me. Yellow, black and red? That I can do, but this random splatter? Couldn't he have bled out some nice detailing? Maybe a cute little checkered pattern?"

"What happened, Cat?"

"A few walking can openers got through." Cat brushed at the blood on his jacket with distaste. "Briggs distracted them and I snuck up on them…" Cat made some sneaking motions. "And then I pounced." Cat grinned.

"Briggs? How?"

Cat waved over to where Briggs' body slumped against a crate. "By being a target."

Lister turned back to Cat. "Where's Rimmer?"

"That walking sewer backup? I don't know. I can only hope he's dead." Cat huffed.

Lister looked around. He saw Killcrazy hugging the prone and blood-soaked form of Baxter to his chest. Lister frog walked to his side. "Killcrazy! Have yeh seen Rimmer?"

Kill crazy sobbed and babbled something incomprehensible.

"Rimmer!" Lister got in his face. "Have yeh seen Rimmer?"

Kill crazy looked up. "'E's dead! 'E's dead!"

Lister fell back on his arse, feeling like he'd just had a shock round shot into his gut. "What?"

"Baxter's dead!" Kill crazy wailed.

Lister turned away from him, scanning the bodies, choking on the stink of blood, vomit and the overwhelming smell of the pusy, acid fluid the simulants used as lubricant or blood or whatever.

Finally he caught sight of Nigel behind one of the crates. Lister crawled over.

Beside Nigel was Rimmer, heavily bandaged and unconscious.

"How is he?" Lister asked.

Nigel looked at Rimmer and shook his head. "Gonna die," he said, simply.

Lister pulled Rimmer into his lap, catching the man's jaw and stroking the thick fuzz behind Rimmer's ear. He fished in his pocket for a cig and brought it to his lips. His hands were shaking. "We all are." He lit it and took a drag. Now if he only had a beer, his death would be complete.

"Dave!" A small voice called from his pocket. "Dave! Dave! Can you hear me?"

Lister dropped the cig. It burned his thigh. He hissed and jerked away from it, then patted down his pockets. "Hol, is that you?"

He found the one with the watch and pulled it out. "Hol!"

"Hi Dave." Holly smiled back at him. He had a puffy purple shiner on one eye.

"Wha' happened to you, Hol?" Lister fished his cig from the floor.

"I got in a bit of a tussle with—wait, just a sec, Dave!"

The OG-AI slipped onto the screen, lunging at Holly with a grimace. Holly kirby kissed her and she went spiraling.

"Hol, what's going on?"

"Sorry Dave. I've been fighting off that… Omega infection since you activated me. Anyway, that should do it." Holly bobbed.

"How?" Lister sucked on his cig, his other hand tangled in Rimmer's hair.

"I got her off guard while she was uploading Red Dwarf's coordinates to the relay station."

"Hol… er—is there anyway you can get us out of this?"

"What's this, Dave?"

Lister looked around him. "We're being pinned down by Agnoids. An EMP is set to go off which will kill the Agnoids. But it'll cause the complex to flood."

Hol paused in though, then smiled. "Easy. But you'll have to turn me off before the EMP."

"Okay, then what?"

"Get me to an uplink by the docking bay relay. I'll activate the transport relay."

"Lister!" Todhunter had turned and pressed himself against a crate, pulling a cartridge of ammo from the jacket of a dead Snake beside him. "Five minutes are up."

Lister fumbled with his watch, trying to find the off switch. His nail brushed it just as a quiet 'fwuph' sounded in the chamber. The lights went out.

Silence filled the chamber. Lister looked up, trying to make out anything in the dark.

Metal groaned: the ground shuddered. Lister stood, struggling to pull Rimmer up with him.

"Run back to the drop ship!" he screamed over the roar of rushing water.

Lister felt hands move beside his. Rimmer's weight eased.

"Come on." He heard Todhunter say and saw a thin streak of light illuminating the way. As they stumbled back to the docking bay doors, frigid water swirled up over their ankles. Rimmer was shaking against Lister. Lister heard others grunting and splashing in the water beside him.

By the time they'd ducked through the doors, it was up to their knees.

"Fifty meters to go." Todhunter splashed beside Lister. "It's rising fast."

Lister turned Holly on. "I get yeh to the uplink, Hol. Then what?"

"I do the rest," came the cackling reply.

Lister looked down. The OG-AI was back. "Where's Hol?" Lister's teeth were chattering. The water was waist height.

"That was me. I put on a little show."

Lister felt the warmth drain from his body.

"Take Rimmer." Lister pushed Rimmer into Todhunter's arms. Then he brought the OG-AI close to his face. "So yeh want to be stuck here then?"

"What?"

"What do you think happens to you when we drown?" Lister scanned the walls for the uplink. He saw a bit of el-tape worked into a square. Close enough. He paddled towards it.

"I can transport myself as soon as you get me into that uplink." The OG-AI laughed. Something slammed into the side of her face. A bald torpedo that sent her skidding out of the frame. Hol steadied himself and blinked up at Lister. "Get me into that uplink!"

Lister glanced back at the el-tape. It was submerged now. His whole body shuddered, the cold felt like a fist, constricting around his chest. Lister took a deep breath and dove.

The water lashed his face. He dove for the el-tape square. Hoping that he was right.

With one hand caught on a hand rail to fight the currents, Lister thrust Holly at the center of the glowing square. Something caught and he blindly turned knobs and locks.

Just as the cold felt like it would tear Lister in half, Lister thought he heard Holly say, "Brace yourselves, dudes."


	15. Seige

Red Dwarf Fanfic: Last Humans

Chapter 13: Seige

Summary: Wherein the posse is back on Red Dwarf(minus a few, plus a few), Rimmer is near death, and Lister annoys Holly with his singlemindedness.

Warnings: Language, medical situations, violence

Beta: Rack

Chapter Rating: T(PG-13)

(ooo)

Chapter 13: Seige

(ooo)

//Ship Serial No: Red Dwarf JMC66350

//Ship's Time: 04:34-06.12-002.343

//AI-Holly-Executive: LARGE AMOUNT OF WATER DETECTED IN DOCKING BAY

//AI-Holly-Executive: SUSPECT THIRD QUANTUM-PHYSIST SOCIAL GROUP POOL PARTY

Lister dropped. Before he could think to scream, the floor knocked breath and sense out of him. Shuddering, he groped back to awareness and then to his feet.

He glanced around. He was in the middle of a two-inch-deep puddle that had flooded part of the Red Dwarf docking bay.

Several other sodden Snakes blinked up at him from the floor.

"Hol?" He called.

"Quite a rush," deadpanned Hol, from the ground beside Lister's feet. Lister reached down to pick him up and strapped him to his wrist.

The Snakes around him started to stir and pull themselves to their feet.

"Todhunter?" Lister yelled.

"Here." A voice called from behind him. Lister turned.

Todhunter still held Rimmer.

Lister half ran to Rimmer, catching the man's face in his hands, testing the artery at his throat. The pulse was light. "Todhunter…" Lister looked up at Hollister's former first officer.

Todhunter shook his head. "If he's going to survive we have to get him to medical."

"That would mean surrendering to Hollister." Lister grimaced. "And I don't trust the man not to just let Rimmer die."

"Then what?"

Lister scanned the docking bay. He saw it. Starbug. It sat under a mechanic's armature, either his old Lander repaired or a new one under service. Lister didn't care.

"Snakes!" He shouted at the milling Canaries. "We're headed for that!" Lister pointed to the Starbug.

He set off at a flat run, not knowing how much time he had before Hollister detected their presence. Feet pounded after him.

Lister streaked past a startled mechanic—"Oi! What you think you're doing?" Lister didn't stop. "I'm gonna call security!" The mechanic called after him.

Lister put on another burst of speed, hitting the open platform of the Lander before the mechanic had time to open a com link. He rocketed up the stairs into the belly of the Starbug, pushing stunned mechanics out of his way as he bee-lined for the bridge. As soon as he'd pulled open the bridge doors he brought up Holly.

"Hol, stretch your legs and take over this little junker."

"Will do, Dave." Hol replied and blinked off the com and onto the Starbug screen.

"Lieutenant Commander Todhunter!" Lister heard one of the mechanics shout from behind him. "There's an unauthorized—"

"He's authorized. We're under orders by Hollister to take over this Starbug. Dismissed."

"But, sir. The inspection isn't finished—"

"I said dismissed!"

Lister heard footsteps retreating out of Starbug. He grinned, his hands slipping over the controls with relish. Freedom.

"Hol, are the rest of us aboard?"

"Yes, Dave."

"Then pull up the draw-bridge."

(ooo)

"Why do you think Captain Hollister's calling us up to his office, Ma'am?" Kryten's hands quivered by his mouth. "Do you think he's going to reprimand us?" Kryten gaped like an over-fed goldfish.

"Kryten. I'm sure whatever the Captain has to tell us will be so horrifyingly bad that whenever I _do_ get my freedom and can finally have a proper life that it will be ruined for years to come by the memory of what Hollister has to say." Kochanski paused. "So let's just enjoy our last moments of freedom from whatever horrible thing will exit Hollister's lips, shall we?"

Kryten's voice synthesizer hummed—he was about to say something more. Kochanski raised her hand. "In silence, Kryten. In silence."

They walked down the hall. Kochanski picked at her immaculate lab coat. She had some very good ideas of what Hollister was going to say. Starting with "I regret" and ending with "died tragically." Kochanski sniffled. She would never in a million years have chosen any of the human space debris she had ended up with, but… somehow they'd become family. And the thought of them dead…

Kochanski stared at the ceiling, holding back tears. She stopped before the Captain's office. Kryten bobbled to a halt beside her.

The door opened.

She entered, taking small, deliberate steps through the receiving room, trying to make her tears well _down_.

"Ah, Miss Kochanski," said Hollister.

He seemed fatter somehow, puffed up with an emotion Kochanski would have placed between smugness and contentment. She clasped her hands behind her back and looked down at him inquiringly. "Sir?"

Hollister dropped his faint smile. "I regret to inform you—"

Kochanski braced herself.

A tall, narrow man in orange mechanic overalls brushed past her, "Sir! Sir!"

Hollister looked from Kochanski to the mechanic and slammed his fist down in what looked, alarmingly, like disappointment. "What is it?"

Kochanski's lips thinned.

"I've just been sent up by Thorton from the docking bay. A group of Canaries have taken over a Starbug."

Kochanski caught Kryten's arm, glancing up at the mechanoid.

Hollister slammed both hands on his desk, going so far as to heave his bulk up. "What? Who?"

"Thorton doesn't know exactly. But we do know Lister is the leader. He's already issued demands."

"What demands?"

"Medical and food supplies, sir. We've already delivered most of it, but he asked for a doctor, and—"

"What? Why on Jupiter's Eye would you do that without asking me?" Flecks of Hollister's spittle rained down on the mechanic.

The mechanic wiped his eyes. "Lister is holding Mister Todhunter hostage. He threatened to shoot the Lieutenant Commander if we didn't—"

Hollister sat down heavily. He opened his mouth to say something then closed it and pressed his fingers to his temples. "Don't ever do that again. It's JMC policy not to negotiate with terrorists."

"Sir. He also said something…" The mechanic trailed off. "It was garbled, I think, sir. He said something about donuts? That he was going to broadcast something about donuts across the ship intercom." The mechanic shook his head. "It was nonsense."

Hollister made a noise between a whimper and an imploding scream. Kochanski turned back to the Captain. He looked like he was trying to evacuate an impacted colon. "Did you shut down the intercom?"

The mechanic laughed. "Why bother? Who cares about donuts?"

"Shut it down!" Hollister bellowed. "Go and do it now!"

The mechanic flinched away from Hollister, turning on his heel and scurrying out the door.

Kochanski turned as well, pulling on Kryten to follow, feeling hopeful.

"Where do you think you're going Ms. Kochanski?"

"I thought—"

"Stay right there." Hollister pressed the intercom. "Thorton, I want you to send security staff to my office. I want them assigned to take _care_ of Miss Kochanski and Kryten. You'll be escorting them back to temporary crew quarters. Make sure they get there and make sure they _stay_ there."

(ooo)

Lister glanced over the remaining Snake Eaters. Out of twenty-three, there were five left. Him, Cat, Nigel, Killcrazy and Rimmer. Then there was Todhunter.

"Where's that doctor?" Lister muscled past Killcrazy, who was muttering softly to a slimy piece of _something_ he had clutched to his chest.

Todhunter glanced back from the com station. "Looks like they've called our bluff."

Lister looked at the back section of Starbug. Nigel, who'd been some sort of paramedic before he'd been sent to prison, had fixed Rimmer up as best he could.

Lister glanced at Todhunter. "Don't high-fliers like you know surgery or something?"

Todhunter looked at him like he was crazy. "My master's thesis was on navigating singularities. My undergrad was in applied assembly programming and astronavigation. It's only pure accident that I actually know how to use a carbine." Todhunter lifted his hand, pointing to a ring. "Navy Cadet, first Lieutenant. Spent every summer on Mars freezing my arse off. Navy cadet training. In the middle of a frozen desert." Todhunter shook his head. "What gave you the idea I'd know how to do _surgery_?"

Lister leaned back against the Starbug hull, tipping his head up. "Just a thought."

"We could try cryo sleep." Todhunter looked towards the aft. "But that would probably kill him."

Lister nodded. His stomach churned.

Todhunter caught his arm. "You've been running on adrenaline since before I got sucked into this mess. Eat something, get some sleep. I'll use the mining lasers if they try to take a torch to the Starbug."

Lister stared at his hands. He'd torn them up at some point and hadn't even noticed. Nigel had done his best with strips of gauze and emergency sutures. Lister knew his hands should hurt more, but they just felt numb. _He_ felt numb. And the thought of sleeping and waking up to find Rimmer dead made him feel like puking. Again. "I don't know if I can." Lister fished in his pocket for a packet of smokes and pulled one out.

"Give me one, too." Todhunter held his hand out. Lister palmed him one and lit both. They took a few drags in twitchy silence.

"I didn't know you smoked, yeah?" Lister sat down on a crate of supplies.

Todhunter looked at the cigarette between his fingers. "I used to. Then I quit. I've started up again. Recent events being what they are." Todhunter took a deep breath.

"What? You mean the whole million light years from Earth thing?" Lister coughed.

"And million years in the future." Todhunter still stared at his burning cig. His eyes unfocused.

"You have a family right?" Lister asked.

"Me? Oh…" Todhunter blinked out of his reverie. "Not off the ship. I…uh…" He glanced at Lister awkwardly. "Well, I divorced my first wife years ago. Er. As it were."

"And your kids?"

"Hmm…" Todhunter trailed off. "That was sort of why we got divorced." Another awkward glance. "My second wife. She was… um… well she was a navigational officer on board Red Dwarf. We had a kid. She is… was…placed in a top-notch virtual environment on Earth to grow up." Todhunter's voice hitched. "When I woke up in deep space my wife was gone. I haven't found her yet. She… uh…"

"Ehm. Sorry mate." Lister stared down at his injured hands. Truth was, he didn't feel much of anything.

"Huh." Todhunter said, by way of answer and took another drag. He stubbed out his cigarette. "But I suppose she isn't alive anymore. Not even her descendants." Todhunter laughed, humorlessly. "Why don't you go see how Rimmer's doing?" Todhunter nodded towards the back of Starbug. "What happened to him anyway? I hear he got shot trying to protect you. Doesn't sound like the Rimmer I know."

Lister eyed Todhunter. Then he flicked his own cigarette into the floor and stepped on it, moving towards Starbug's center section. "I dunno."

(ooo)

Lister edged into the medical bay, terrified of what he'd find. The psyscan hooked up to Rimmer gave off a slow blip and Lister exhaled, stepping over.

The man was ashen, his breath shallow. Lister glanced towards Rimmer's stomach and shivered. When he'd first seen the mass of blood and tissue, he froze, his whole body numb and tingling. Nigel had slapped Lister out of it and told Lister if he didn't help Rimmer would die. That was enough to jar him into action. He'd maintained as he helped Nigel ventilate Rimmer and flush out the wound. Then Nigel was wrist deep in Rimmer's bowels with a suture gun and the business end of the psyroscopy machine and it'd been too much for Lister. He'd vomited into the sink. More then once.

Lister bit back rising nausea as he remembered the sound of it. The sucking sound of Nigel fishing around, then the thwack-thwack-thwack of the gun. Finally Nigel'd packed Rimmer's wound and covered it, hooking him up to the psyscan.

He stepped up to the bed, running his hand over the edge, checking Rimmer's IV and then the stat that Nigel said meant bad things if it went under 70. It was 75.

Lister sighed and sat down beside Rimmer.

Rimmer looked different when he was asleep. All the smarmy, snotty, nasty fell away and just left the lines of his face plain.

Lister leaned his head on a hand. They were nice lines, too. He could see the appeal, really. For Kris at least. Lister sighed. "Why'd yeh have to go and do that?" He folded his arms and cupped his chin in a hand. "Why'd she choose yeh over me? I even _look_ like her bloke. I _am_ him. For the most part. Sort of, yeah."

Rimmer'd said, _you lose all perspective when it comes to her_. Lister caught a plait and chewed it. Did that mean he was in love with her? He'd always _thought_ so. But then… this Kochanski was something different, wasn't she? She always made him feel… tired. Like being with her was a bit of an uphill slog.

Lister glanced back at Rimmer. His eyes were ringed with dark, his lips bluish. He'd never felt _tired_ around Rimmer. Irritated, annoyed, vexed, like he wanted to twat the man more then breathing, tired _of_ him… but not tired.

Kochanski had all these expectations. Lister could feel her looking at him, feel the pressure of them being calculated. He didn't measure up to_her_ Dave, who'd had to change to measure up at all.

Tiresome, that. The work exhausted him and he hadn't even started.

Lister pillowed his head in his arms and sniffled. His hands stung. The cuts all over his body throbbed and his muscles ached from the strain of hauling taller, heavier Rimmer.

"Hey, Listy."

Lister looked up, rubbing the tears out of his eyes.

Rimmer looked down at him, his eyes slightly unfocused, eyes narrowed effort of holding his head up a few inches. "What's wrong, you sentimental wolly-woofter?"

"Yeh got shot, yeah?" Lister explained and the explanation felt surreal. "Remember? You were trying to protect me."

Rimmer's head dropped back to the pillow. "That's bollocks. Why would I save you, you scummy space slob?" He breathed heavily. "It hurts. I can't move."

Lister caught his arm. "We sedated yeh. Nigel said…" Lister swallowed. "We gave yeh as much pain meds as we could. It has to last till…"

"Till what?" Rimmer prompted, his voice unusually soft.

"Doesn't matter, man." Lister smiled. "Go back to sleep. Yeh gottah keep yer strength up."

Before he'd finished talking, Rimmer's eyes had closed and he'd drifted off. Lister looked back up at his vital signs. They were still holding steady.

Lister brought up his wrist. "Hol?"

"Yes, Dave?" Holly bobbed on his black background, a night cap on his head.

"So yer good now, then? No more of that O-G AI?"

"I think we've got her under control."

"We?"

"Well, me and female Holly."

"Yeh and yer feminine side, Eh." Lister chuckled. "Erm. I had a question Hol."

"Shoot, Dave."

Lister hesitated, then took a deep breath. "Why did yeh resurrect him as a hologram to keep me company?"

"Thought we went over this, Dave."

"Yeah, but it seems like a bit of a thin excuse, just the number of words we shared."

Holly blinked up at Lister, his face blank. "I ran simulations and he was the one who would keep you sane."

"So he was the one? Not love but a bloke I can't stand?"

"Is that what you had with Kris?"

"Yes! That's what I had with Kris." Lister replied. "I was resurrected as a hologram for her, to keep her sane. Why wouldn't it work the other way round?"

"That was a different you, Dave."

"She fell in love with me, Hol. She did." Lister leaned his head on his folded arm. "I was resurrected for her and she fell in love with me. That didn't happen in _this_ universe because of yer_calculations_."

Holly blinked. "Dave. What's done is done."

"It's such bullocks—"

"What? Having Rimmer instead of Kochanski?"

Lister stopped mid rant and glanced down at Holly, who looked peeved. "Yeah, well… Wouldn't having someone who made me want to live be more likely to keep me sane?"

Holly shook his head. "You give me credit for being a right soft lad you do. 'IQ of 6000,' you say to yourself, 'I bet he don't top 60.'"

"Hol?"

"Goodnight, Dave."

Holly blinked off. Lister was left feeling like he wanted to crawl out of his skin. "Smeg."

Holly blinked on again. "You were fishing for something." He said, his voice flat.

"What? Hol?"

"That's your answer, Dave. You were fishing."

"Hol." Lister rubbed his eyes. "Yer confusing me."

Holly bobbed. "Dave, _why_ would you be fishing for something?"

"Because I want to eat fish?" Lister sighed.

Holly shook his head, "Goodnight."

Lister waited, watching Holly's screen in case he flicked on again and said something more. After a few moments of nothing, he looked over at Rimmer's psyscan readout, checking his stats. Everything seemed stable. With nothing left to distract him, let his eyes settle on the other man's face.

Pain, anger and a helpless confusion filtered up through Lister's discomfort. He coughed a bit to clear the tightness in his throat then sniffed. His heart felt like it was being cube-steaked by some demented cannibal chief. Lister coughed again.

The cough started him crying. And the crying started his nose running. He wiped it off on his sleeve, leaving a long, slimy trail.

"Why'd you go an' do that, Rimmah?" He lay over Rimmer's side. Sobbing into the man's chest.

The door to the medical bay opened.

Lister looked up, wiping his eyes.

Todhunter stared at him, his arms full of blankets, then recovered. "Sorry to interrupt, but we need to talk." He strode in, moving with the same measured confidence he always had.

Lister nodded.

Todhunter settled beside the foot of Rimmer's bed. "Hollister is trying to freeze us out. He's cut climate control to the docking bay." Todhunter brought up his blankets. "Nigel hasn't been able to get the engines to turn over. Not enough fuel. So there's only the emergency generator running the air recyc and climate. And it only has two charged fuel cells instead of the usual eight." Todhunter trailed off.

"What're yeh tellin' me?"

"Keeping the medical bay live is a big drain." Todhunter glanced at Rimmer. "I've cut climate control to a minimum and air recyc. But even with the cuts we don't have enough power for more then two or three days. After that we will freeze or suffocate."

Lister didn't fill in Todhunter's silence, instead he stared up at the man.

"Nigel says Rimmer has a day, maybe a day and a half before we're dealing with sepsis." Todhunter laughed. "Hard to imagine a man like that as a paramedic. Must have scared most of his patients to death."

Lister's jaw tensed. "What are yeh getting at?"

"Maybe we should surrender Rimmer? Without the medical bay we get a full week of time, and maybe that will give us an opportunity for leverage."

"No." Lister stood. "Arlarse Hollister will just use Rimmer to blackmail us."

"You think he would…? Deny him medical treatment? Bargain with his life? What am I saying. Of course he would." Todhunter fell silent, staring at the floor.

"He can't know our situation."

"Maybe we should surrender?"

"And get thrown in jail? Or worse?" Lister nodded at Rimmer. "Hollister will keep trying to off us in underhanded ways. No. I'm tired of this smeg."

"Then what?"

"Bob." Rimmer whispered.

Lister turned back, leaning close, flushing in shame as he caught the man's hand. How much had Rimmer been listening too? "What?"

"Get Bob."

"What? You mean Bob the skutter?"

Rimmer opened his eyes, raising his head a little ways off the bed. "Yes."

"What can Bob do?" Lister shook his head.

Rimmer fell back, eyes closed.

"A skutter?" Todhunter drew himself up. "He's got to be taking the piss."

"No. Bob's got resources, yeah? I don't know if he can help, but maybe?" Lister brought up his watch. "Hol?" The screen remained blank. Lister tapped the screen. "Hol? Are yeh there?"

Holly popped into life. "What do you want Dave?" He didn't sound happy.

"Didn't mean to bother yeh Hol, but we've a bit of a prob. Hollister's cut climate to the dockin' bay. We don't have the power to survive more'n two or three days. We need help. Could yeh get hold of Bob for me? Tell him our situation?"

"I could do, Dave. On one condition."

"What's that Hol?"

"If you ever bother me again about who I chose to keep you sane, I'm telling the nanobots to turn you inside out."

Lister glanced at Todhunter, who'd furrowed his brow in confusion. Lister pulled his watch close to his face. "It matters that much to yeh, Hol?"

"Yes."

"Okay then. I won't."

"Give it a mo'." Holly blinked off.

Lister watched the screen. Holly didn't blink back on immediately. Lister hummed, nervous.

Todhunter cleared his throat, pushing the blankets towards Lister.

"It's going to get very cold tonight. Killcrazy's locked himself in one of the bunk rooms so looks like I'm sharing a bed with Nigel." Todhunter shuddered. "Reliving my cadet days, I suspect. I spent one night in between Pat Buchsie and Norman Ellis. Norman was shivering so hard I think that night might qualify the first time I ever got to third base."

"Er. Thanks." Lister took the blankets and set them on a chair beside Rimmer's bed. Todhunter was from Ganymede. Ganymites were always a bit strange about privacy. Maybe came from living so communally, they even timeshared their kecks. Of course he'd never thought Ganymites married. Lister eyed Todhunter. Who looked back blandly, rocking back and forth on his heels. Might explain the whole ankle-biter situation.

"I'll let you figure out what you're going to do." Todhunter nodded at Rimmer. "But Nigel says with the amount of blood he's lost—"

"I get it." Lister snapped. Then he brought his wrist up. "Hol? Are yeh done, yet?"

"Yes, Dave."

"What did he say?"

"He said that he'll have Red Dwarf under his control by tomorrow morning. Then he'll issue whatever demands you have."

"What? How?"

"He's a skutter." Holly said sagely.

"We want the crew told the real story." Lister glanced at Todhunter, who nodded in agreement. "We also want Hollister to step down and stand trial for… er—"

"Gross infractions of JMC protocol and the United Planet's Charter of Human Rights." Todhunter supplied.

"Right, that. Got all that Hol?"

"Yes." Holly blinked off again.

"So that's it then?" Todhunter chuckled. "We're all going to be saved by a skutter."

"I suppose." Lister offered. "I don't know what Bob has in mind… er… circuit."

"You realize that this seems, for all intents and purposes, to be some sort of bizarre hallucination." Todhunter rested against Rimmer's bed.

"Yeh get used to it." Lister threaded his fingers together.

"Anyway. I think we're done. And Nigel awaits." Todhunter turned on his heel. "Night."

"Bye." Lister said, half-heartedly. He didn't hear Todhunter exit. Instead he was staring very intently at the blankets.

_The amount of blood he's lost_… Lister shook his head then shivered. It was getting cold. He hadn't thought to ask Todhunter just how cold it would get.

Lister lifted the first blanket and threw it over Rimmer.

(ooo)

Lister rubbed his hands together, watching his breath mist. He'd given most of the blankets to Rimmer, even so the man's lips had turned from purple to blue and that important stat Nigel'd told him to keep an eye on now hovered around 71.

Lister unwrapped the final blanket from around his shoulders and threw it over Rimmer. He sat for a few moments, shivering and huffing in the cold.

Then he gave up and slid in beside Rimmer.

Rimmer was not warm. He was also not shivering. Lister hesitated a moment before wrapping an arm over the man's chest. It didn't bother him, the contact, but Rimmer had said, 'doing things you don't mean the full extent of' and worried that the man would misinterpret. And then he wondered if maybe _he_ was misinterpreting.

Lister nestled his head into the crook of Rimmer's neck, kissing the skin underneath his jaw. Then he rested his forehead against Rimmer's cheek and sniffled. The cube-steaking cannibal was back and he felt like choking, vomiting and screaming all at once.

Instead he rubbed his running nose on Rimmer's shoulder and smiled at the thought of how the man would have gone incoherent with fury if he'd been conscious.


	16. Coup

Red Dwarf Fanfic: Last Humans

Chapter 14: Coup

Summary: Wherein Rimmer is near death, KillCrazy has a bit of Baxter, and the skutters seize control of Red Dwarf. Oh, and the posse finds out that the Red Dwarf is about to be wiped out by Dark Galactic Forces™.

Warnings: Language, medical situations, violence

Beta: Rack

Chapter Rating: T(PG-13)

(ooo)

Chapter 14: Coup

(ooo)

//Ship Serial No: Red Dwarf JMC66350

//Ship's Time: 04:34-06.12-002.343

//AI-Holly-Executive: SPACE WEEVILS HAVE TAKEN OVER ALL SECONDARY AND TERTIARY FUNCTIONS

//AI-Holly-Executive: HAVE RETAINED CONTROL OVER ENGINES AND NAVIGATION

//AI-Holly-Executive: SUSPECT SPACE WEEVILS COVER FOR AN INSIDE JOB

Lister started awake at the sound of frantic beeping. He looked up at Rimmer's stats. One blinked red.

55.

Lister exploded off the bed and raced towards the medical bay doors. He ran into Nigel along the hallway outside. "Rimmer!"

Nigel pushed Lister out of the way and pelted towards the medical bay doors.

By the time Lister caught up with him, the convict was punching instructions into Rimmer's psyscan.

"'Is oxygen levels'r droppin'." Nigel brought out a pulse hypo and pressed it against Rimmer's chest. He discharged it with a click and a sound like a dart hitting a cork board. Lister watched helplessly.

Nigel unhooked the spent IV bag and replaced it with another one labeled 'hypertonic.'

"What happened?" Lister asked.

Nigel continued tapping in commands and checking stats, ignoring Lister for several minutes. The red stat hovered at 57 then moved up to 60 and refused to budge. Finally he turned to Lister. "I gave 'im a cardiac stimulant. It'll keep 'im alive for now but 'e's still bleeding. 'E needs a proper surgeon."

Lister leaned his palms on Rimmer's bed, his eyes closed. "Even if we surrender there's no guarantee that Hollister will save him. He_wanted_ to kill us, Nigel."

Nigel fiddled with one of his eyebrow rings. "We don't 'ave a choice. It's either throw ourselves on 'Ollister's mercy or watch 'im die." Nigel nodded at Rimmer. "An' yeh 'ave five minutes to make yer decision."

Lister glanced up at Nigel. He couldn't speak.

The medical bay doors slid open. They both turned.

"Lister. Hollister's contacted us." Todhunter leaned against the door jam. "He's told us to release ship functions or we'll be facing life in the brig."

"Wait?" Lister blinked. "Ship functions?"

Todhunter waved him forward. "You better come see."

(ooo)

"What do you think's happened, ma'am?" Kryten asked he looked out of their now-unlocked crew quarters. "It just… opened. And I don't see any security forces."

Kochanski stepped past him into the hallway. "I don't know Kryten." She squinted down the corridor. Someone was screaming.

That someone rounded the corner and streaked into view. It was a black suited security officer, unarmed and being pursued by a skutter with a pulse-hypo in its jaw.

The officer careened past her and she had to jump back to avoid getting stabbed by the skutter. She nearly fell over when a second skutter, wrapped in toilet paper, streaked behind her knees. It stopped short, looking up at her. The skutter had a public washroom toilet paper roll the size of a small tire around its neck. With a warning bleep it screeched off.

Kryten held out a hand to steady her.

"Something odd is going on." Kochanski stared after the T.P. toting skutter. It squealed round the corner, balanced on one smoking tread.

(ooo)

Lister slipped into the Starbug cockpit and stood beside Todhunter at the primary information officer's station. The former commander hovered over the screen. On it rotated a partially transparent model of Red Dwarf. Most of the floors were flashing red. Lister looked up at Todhunter, baffled.

"Someone, Bob I suppose, sent that to us this morning. The red bits indicate the areas scutters have locked down and now control. They've also started re-routing control from Red Dwarf's bridge to some sort of command center in C-tower."

"Brutal! I didn't know Bob had that kind of pull."

"Hollister's furious."

"The fat-man's goin' down!" Lister clapped his hands together, then brought his wrist up. "Hol. Tell Bob we need to get Rimmer to the Red Dwarf medical floor."

There was a pause. Then Holly replied. "Bob says he's facing resistance securing the docking bay and floors twenty through thirty seven."

"What's that mean, Hol?"

"Medical floor is twenty-five, Dave. And you'll have to navigate floors forty-two through twenty-six to get to it."

"So Rimmer's going to die?"

"Bob says he'll send down a company of scutters to help from one of the controlled zones. That's the best he can do as the bulk of his forces are pinned down on floor twenty-two."

"Twenty-two? That used teh be the floor with the chocolaterie."

"Still is, Dave."

Lister snorted. "Figures Hollister would put up the hardest fight there. Alright. Looks like we're on the move again. Todhunter, get a stretcher and break open the weapons cabinet. I want everyone armed. I'm gonna round up the others."

"What about Killcrazy?"

Lister shrugged. "We don't have time to baby-sit him. I'll tell him we're movin' out."

(ooo)

"Awww. Why do I have to carry Mister Nasal Hair himself?" Cat whined, leaning against a wall in the Starbug's galley.

"Because you're the strongest and the quickest. And you don't know how to use a gun." Lister pulled Cat away from the wall and pushed him towards the medical section. "Go help Nigel load up Rimmer or I'll find your sewin' machine, gut it and turn it into a artistic planter. Now." Lister gave him a final shove.

The Cat hissed, straightened the collar of the pink and black pleather suit he'd found—smeg knows where—and sauntered off down the hall.

Lister trudged out of the galley. A short walk later he was at one of the two bunk rooms. "Killcrazy?" He called. "We're moving out."

No answer.

Lister sighed. "Killcrazy, yeh have ten seconds to get yer arse out here before yer left behind."

Silence.

"Hol? Could yeh get that door open for me."

"Just a sec, Dave." Hol's image flickered. "There."

The door slid open.

Lister sniffed. It smelled of smoke and some sort of tinny, roasted pork type smell. Lister edged inside.

Killcrazy sat in the middle of the floor, his wide eyes staring at Lister. His clothing was torn to shreds and his skin smeared with ash. He was about to take another bite from the huge hunk of meat he had in his hands.

Lister glanced at the remains of a fire made out of bits of table leg, clothes and scraps of paper. Beside it sat a series of thick lumps of roasted flesh. Lister glanced back at Kill crazy. Where'd he get the meat?

Then Lister noticed the blackened lump in the fire that looked very familiar. As his eyes traced over five chunky toes, horror rose in the back of Lister's throat.

Killcrazy let the chunk of… _someone_ drop. Their eyes met. Tear trails streaked Kill Crazy's dirty face.

"Baxter." Lister gasped.

Killcrazy nodded and started to sob.

Lister backed out of the room. "Hol, close the door."

Holly obliged, shutting off the sight of Killcrazy and what was left of Baxter's right leg.

Lister shivered and pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. No time. No time.

He turned and ran towards the cockpit.

(ooo)

"I'm going to program the mining lasers to create a diversion." Todhunter's hands flew over the input keyboard. "While they're blasting a hole through the bay floor, we'll go out the back of the Lander and make for the exit here." Todhunter turned to the docking bay floor map he'd spread out on the back of a chair and traced out a path. "It's not far. Bob says he's unlocked the elevator to floor thirty-six. Once we get to the exit we're good. We'll meet up with a company of… scutters on floor thirty-six."

Lister looked over the remaining Snake Eaters. Nigel and Cat were carrying Rimmer's stretcher, Cat's face twisting in disgust.

"Ready?" Lister asked. Nigel nodded. Cat glared at him like he'd just pissed in his favorite dinner jacket.

"Where's Killcrazy?" Todhunter folded up the map.

Lister shook his head. "We're leaving without him." He did his best to fight off the sight of Killcrazy munching on Baxter's thigh and failed. "Let's go."

(ooo)

The heat of the lasers buffeted against Lister as he darted through Starbug's landing legs, side by side with Todhunter, the rest of the Snake Eaters in front. Once they were clear of the Starbug the cold of the bay bit into Lister's nose and ears, raising tears in his eyes. He pulled up his collar and ran on.

The first shots rang out as soon as they neared the exit.

Cat yowled and stopped, nearly spilling Rimmer to the ground. Todhunter slammed into him and shoved him forward behind a row of fuel crates.

Lister darted towards the exit. Todhunter was shooting overtop the crates, covering Cat and Nigel as they slipped through the door. A shot sent him falling backwards in a spray of blood.

Lister turned on his heel and pressed the trigger of his carbine. The rifle jerked into his shoulder, against his cheek. He kept firing till he felt hands on his arm, pulling him back, pulling him through the exit and into the hall behind.

Todhunter punched the door closed and stood, pressing his forehead against the wall and making an odd swallowing sound as he stifled a moan.

"Come on," Lister said. "We don't have long."

The elevator was only a few paces down the empty hall. Nigel and Cat were already waiting for the lift.

Lister turned back to the docking bay exit, his rifle up.

"Hol. Can yeh lock that door?"

"Not now, Dave. I'm helping Bob fight off Hollister's hackers."

"It's gonna be a moot point if we get killed, Hol." Lister wasn't able to stop the high note in his voice.

The lift door beeped open.

Lister turned. He caught Todhunter's uninjured arm and pulled him along. The man seemed unable to do more then shuffle. Lister gritted his teeth at the speed. Finally, in the lift, he hit the close button with the butt of his rifle.

The doors slid together.

The bay exit opened. Lister pushed Nigel behind the closing door and leveled his rifle to the exit, squeezing off a few shots before Hollister's security forces returned fire and a volley tore the back of the elevator into shrapnel.

The door closed all the way. Several more rounds pocked the elevator door. The lift shuddered and accelerated.

Lister slid down the wall and sat, looking across the compartment at the others. Cat crouched by Rimmer, who'd been laid down on the floor. Todhunter was pressed up against the back wall, pale, breathing hard and staring at the ground. Nigel was tending to him, making a make-shift sling out of an undershirt.

Lister stared at the lift doors. It was all down to him and the scutters.

(ooo)

"Hol, what's the fastest way to the next lift?" Lister reloaded his rifle as he leaned against the lift wall.

"Down this corridor, first left, first right then a mile and a half down the service corridor."

"A mile and a half? Who the smeg designed this ship?"

"Floors forty-two to A seventy-seven used to be part of the Space Core Ganymede station. They recycled it on when it was decommissioned in the 22nd century."

"The nanobots reconstructed _that_?"

"Everything to the original specification, including sixteen thousand square miles of cargo space. Four separate, welded-together ship floor plans. Twenty redundant control centers. And a Karaoke bar on Z deck."

"How the smeg does this lump of chaos operate?" Lister shook his head.

"With an army of scutters." Todhunter smiled wanly, coming back into himself. "An army you managed to get on your side."

"We're gonna have to leg it." Lister motioned to the lift doors. "Can yeh keep up?"

"I have to." Todhunter braced his rifle against his hip.

The doors slid open.

Forty scutters with tranq guns gripped in their head-mounted claws blinked fiber optic eyes up at Lister.

The scutters turned, almost as one and trundled off down the hall. One, the one with a skutter-sized yellow bandanna tied around its prehensile neck, paused to bob its head at them.

"Our escort." Lister grinned back at his rag-tag posse then scurried off after the fast paced scutters.

(ooo)

"Where's Hollister?" Kochanski asked, stepping into the desolate Captain's receiving room. Scutters whizzed back and forth. Three were painting a rather elaborate mural of Hollister on the toilet. Kochanski had to admire the likeness—they'd even managed to capture Hollister's pomposity down to the narrowed eyes and smug little smile.

She stepped over a skutter setting up some sort of board game on the floor and entered the Captain's Office, Kryten following after her.

A skutter sat in Hollister's chair. It was wearing a pair of reading glasses and a small, crocheted yellow dress. Kochanski recognized Dave's handiwork.

"Oh, hello. You're Madge. Dave has told me so much about you," Kochanski said, feeling silly. "Um. I was wondering where Hollister got to? And what's happened to the ship?"

The skutter cocked—her?—head and offered a series of clicks and whistles.

Kryten pushed past Kochanski. "Allow me to translate, ma'am. I am fluent in skutter. She says that Bob—her husband—is in the process of leading a skutter uprising intended to wrest control of Red Dwarf from Hollister."

"That explains all the skutters." Kochanski glanced back at the receiving room. "Does she know anything about Dave or Arnold? Are they alright?"

Once again the skutter considered the question, then beeped.

Kryten beeped back at her and she replied with a whistle and a click. "Madge says that Dave is currently being escorted by a company of skutters to the Medical bay."

"The medical bay? Why?"

"She says that Smeg, Son of Smeg, is critically injured. Oh, sorry, ma'am. The skutters… they use a different system to refer to people then we do. I'll try to find out who that is for you—"

"I know who it is, Kryten." Kochanski gripped Hollister's desk till she thought it would splinter or her fingers would break.

(ooo)

Lister was a few meters down the hall before he realized the Snake Eaters—and half the skutters—had stopped. He trotted back and found them in a lounge alcove, clustered around Rimmer. He'd been laid down on the floor by Nigel and Cat. "What's goin' on? We don't have time for this!"

"His 'eart's stopped." Nigel's gaze caught Lister's before he stared down at Rimmer, waxen on the steel floor of the alcove. Nigel bent over the man's mouth, pinned his nostrils, cupped it with his own and breathed out.

Lister stared. He couldn't move. "What?" He said.

Nigel locked his arms over Rimmer's chest and pushed down hard, one, two, three times.

Todhunter caught Lister's arm. "We've got to do something."

Lister turned to Todhunter. "What?" He repeated, not understanding. His thoughts found traction. "Help. I've got ta get help. You stay here. Cat, help Nigel move Rimmer into the bathroom. Barricade it."

Lister strode towards the entrance of the alcove. The skutters beeped and whirred, following him. He turned back to them. "No! Yeh have to stay with Rimmer. Yeh got to protect him. Security forces could be comin' through any minute." He took a step away. Some still followed. "Stay!" He commanded then gave up when he took another step and a half dozen remained at his heels.

Lister sprinted down the hall. The whirr of skutter tracks followed him.

He had a half a mile to go to the elevator. The hallway was empty.

Lister had always hated running. His year four P.E. coach had been a jogging tyrant, forcing Lister's pudgy ten year old body too far and too fast till Lister had felt like he was going to explode. His P.E. coach would have been apoplectic with envy at the time it took for Lister to hurtle himself the last quarter mile.

He reached the elevator just as his lungs began to close down for the day. The elevator opened. Lister limped to the back and leaned up against the wall, trying not to cough as he pulled in one razor-sharp breath after another.

The skutters rocketed in after him, their little carapaces smoking.

As he panted and the lift rumbled to a start, the skutters arranged themselves in a line in front of the elevator doors. He edged behind the wall so he wouldn't be seen, immediately, when the elevator opened.

The living and control floors were considerably lower in ceiling height then the cargo floors, which meant the final lift ride was over almost as quick as it had begun.

The doors opened.

Bullets thudded into the back wall.

The skutters let loose with a volley of tranquilizer darts. Lister heard a series of thuds. One of the skutters was caught by a bullet, sending it spinning and sparking into the corner of the elevator.

The skutters moved out.

Lister glanced down the hall. Only one man still stood and he was slumped up against the wall. The rest were twitching helplessly on the floor.

He looked down at the damaged skutter. It was trying to right itself, weakly, with its claw. The head skutter, the one with the bandana, was crouched over it, trying to nudge it back up.

"No man left behind." Lister grabbed up the skutter and legged it.

From Holly's instructions, Lister knew it was just a flat out drag to the medical bay from the elevator. No turns.

(ooo)

Kochanski picked up the rifle. "This is loaded with tranq darts?"

The skutter that had brought it to her nodded its claw.

"How do I look ma'am?" Kryten stepped up to Kochanski. He'd looped two ammo belts full of darts over his chest. He'd also stolen a metal army helmet from Hollister's walk-in filing cabinet—possibly a relic from some by-gone Captain who'd been an antiques buff—and put a few more darts through the webbing draped over the top.

"Like you're on safari." Kochanski picked up an extra clip and slipped it into her flack jacket.

"What's the plan Miss Kochanski?"

"We're going to the medical bay." Kochanski pulled the rifle strap over her head and surveyed her company of dart-gun armed skutters. "Move out!"

(ooo)

Lister could see the medical bay doors. Just thirty meters left. He put on another burst of speed. Twenty meters. Ten.

"Stop!"

Lister didn't stop. Instead he scrambled against the door. "Open. Open!"

A gunshot slammed into the door beside him, sending stinging bits of shrapnel into his arm.

Lister turned around, holding his bleeding forearm to his chest. Thorton. He had a .44 in his hand. Behind him, half a company of security forces trained their rifles on Lister.

The security chief smirked at him. "Put the rifle down." He jerked his gun at the skutters. "You too, you mechanoid vermin."

Lister set his rifle and the damaged skutter on the floor and stood, arms in the air. The skutters dropped their guns.

With a flick of his wrist he brought up his radio. "I've got the ringleader, Captain. Out." Thorton slipped his radio back in his belt and slipped his gun into its holster. He stepped forward to catch Lister's shoulder. "You're coming with—"

Lister rotated his arm up and over Thorton's grip, catching the security chief's bicep and forcing him into a stumbling crouch. Lister grabbed Thorton's gun out and shoved it against Thorton's neck.

"Back off!" Lister's hand shook. "Put yer guns down."

"Don't listen to him!" Thorton eyed Lister. "You don't have the guts." He jerked his head towards his men. "Take him!"

Lister jerked Thorton further down. The security forces advanced and he swung Thorton's gun towards them. "Stop!" The gun was back at Thorton's throat. "I'll shoot! Put yer guns down!"

The soldiers stopped, but didn't drop their rifles.

"An impasse." Thorton chortled. "What are you going to do? I tell you what, if you let me go, I'll think about getting your friend some help."

Lister tried to calm his rising panic. Every second was one second too many. And he couldn't _kill_. Not even Thorton.

Lister felt his grip begin to loosen.

"That's it." The security chief grinned up at him. "Don't be a fool."

"Lister! Get out of the way!" It was Kochanski.

A volley of 'thwaps' sounded.

Lister looked up. Kochanski was barreling towards him, a group of skutters fanned out in front. Most of Thorton's forces were on the floor, trying to pull tranq darts out of their bodies. The rest were retreating in confusion.

Kochanski clipped one with her shoulder and stumbled to a stop, taking aim.

Lister shoved Thorton away, diving towards the wall.

With a thwack, Thorton was hit in the thigh. He didn't go down immediately. Instead he lunged for Lister and his gun.

Lister twisted out of his grip and struck him across the face with his elbow. With that, Thorton crumpled and Lister was left in the midst of a dozen rag-doll bodies, breathing hard and staring at Kochanski.

"His heart's stopped. We need to get him help."

"I've got clearance." Kochanski glanced at the door. "Open."

Inside Kochanski stepped up to the admittance desk. A nurse was hiding underneath. Kochanski waved her up with the butt of her rifle. "There's an emergency."

(ooo)

Lister felt held together by frayed rope as he jogged along side the mobile resuscitation unit manned by two paramedics. Rimmer lay beneath the plexi top, the machine thrummed as it breathed for him and forced his blood to circulate.

Nigel had kept him alive. The man had nearly dropped from exhaustion as soon as help had come, but he'd kept Rimmer alive.

One more paramedic was helping Todhunter to medical bay.

As they got closer, they were passed by teams, dispatched to help victims of the skutter coup. For the most part the skutters had kept casualties to a minimum, in part by locking most of the Red Dwarf crew in their quarters, but the tranqs, calibrated to hostile _GELF_ life, could kill humans.

They reached the medical bay. Lister followed them through the waiting room lounge. He was stopped by the nurse and directed to a couch. "We'll do all we can." She said.

So he sat down.

He stared at his hands for… he didn't know how long. Eventually he realized he was bleeding again. He'd torn open Nigel's stitches. Blood dripped over the fat part of his thumb and onto the floor.

"You should get that looked at."

Kochanski was sitting beside him.

"You look like hell," she said.

Lister leaned back in his chair. "It's just a waitin' game now."

Kochanski slipped her arm around Lister's shoulders.

Until she did it, Lister hadn't realized how much he needed to be held just then.

"It'll be alright," she said.

He curled against her chest and felt her rest her head against his shoulders. He coughed a bit, feeling pain tickle up and down his throat. So much had happened, the last two days sat like a lump in his mind, too dense to process.

"Ma'am? Sir?"

Lister blinked up. "Krytes. What's up?"

"Bob says he's managed to corner Hollister."

"So the fat man's down? Brutal."

"It's not completely over, sir." Kryten pressed his hands together awkwardly. "The upgraded Holly is refusing to release command of the ship to Bob. Bob's in physical control of almost every floor and all of the secondary and tertiary systems but he isn't able to change heading or speed. Until _their_ Holly feels Hollister has been proven, beyond a shadow of doubt, to be guilty of the charges we're laying against him… and Todhunter can take over as Captain… We're stuck, sir."

Lister pressed his fingers against his forehead. "So what's the rest of it, Kryten?"

"Sir?"

"Whenever you get that optical twitch, there's always more to come. Out with it."

"Well, sir." Kryten squeezed his jellyplast fingers together. "I've been reviewing the data from the StarTransit™ hub. It was a trap. Actually it was a double trap, sir. Not only did the OG-AI trigger the simulants to relay transport into the chamber she…" Kryten's lip wobbled.

"Go on."

"She sent _back_ information to this Omega group. If they didn't know where we were before, they do now, sir."


	17. Insurgency Agent

Red Dwarf Fanfic: Last Humans

Chapter 15: Insurgency Agent

Summary(flashback): Wherein Rimmer-as-Ace kills Agnoids on a desert planet and becomes a little bit less of a smeg-head and Nirvana makes a reappearance, but Rimmer-as-Ace doesn't remember her.

Warnings: Language, heterosexual sexual situations, violence, Rimmer/Nirvana

Beta: Rack, Cazflibs

Chapter Rating: M(16+)

(ooo)

Insurgency Agent

(ooo)

Rimmer edged between two boulders on his stomach, carefully pulling the sniper rifle from around his back and setting it against the edge of the cliff in front of him. He looked over the ravine to the bright spot of green flame, a chemical fire lit by the Agnoids to prevent their organics from freezing in the cold desert night. Through the sniper scope he made out three forms lit by the fire.

Rimmer checked the distance gauge. One hundred meters. He could get away with a class eight EMP. It would fuzz his bee, but he could handle that.

He pulled the trigger. The rifle recoiled into his shoulder. Through the scope he saw the bullet thud into the earth by the fire, spitting up a clod of dirt.

In mid turn the Agnoids slumped, lifeless.

The shockwave hit Rimmer. His projection fizzed and spat, leaving a trace of bloody welts along his skin. He shrugged the pain off and jumped to his feet—hopping down the embankment, landing hard but keeping his feet as he ran down the slope.

It didn't take him more then a few minutes to get to the campsite. He'd have only minutes before their organic parts rebooted their inorganic parts and he'd have three pissed-off Agnoids to deal with and nowhere to run.

They stayed resolutely still as Rimmer ran up to the first, a large model, its outer skin worn and hanging in shreds. He unclipped the utility knife from his belt and flicked open the screw end.

With a sickening squelch he jammed the screw in the Agnoid's skull seam and gave a quick wrench. The skull popped and Rimmer winced. The stench of caramelized giblets steamed off the Agnoid's brain. As soon as they were exposed to the air they started to shrivel and turn black.

Quickly Rimmer moved to the next. He had to haul the second one out of the dirt to pop its top; it had slumped forward, arse end in the air.

The third was a female. She'd stitched her skin back up in places, suggesting some sort of vanity lacking in her male companions. Rimmer jammed his screwdriver in behind her ear and wrenched.

Just as he turned away from her steaming brains, an Agnoid fist slammed into his chest. If Rimmer hadn't been hard light, the force of it would have stopped his heart. As it was it nearly pulverized his light bee.

The Agnoid caught his canvas jacket and jerked him forward till he was eye to eye with its broken and sparking face. "Li'l love gift," the Agnoid rasped as it slammed its palm against Rimmer's neck.

Pain lanced up and down Rimmer's spine, etching trails under his skull. He tasted blood, barely feeling himself hit the ground as the Agnoid dragged him down, still holding onto his jacket.

Rimmer caught the Agnoid's arm, yanking it across his chest as he scissored his legs, one against the Agnoid's armpit, the other shin across its hips. The motion sent it arcing face first into the dirt. The momentum brought Rimmer up and he brought the arm back against his chest, grinding the shoulder joint into the ground. His foot was against the Agnoid's throat he leaned into the captured arm.

The Agnoid thudded against the ground, trying to wrench itself free. Rimmer used his free hand to pull his .44 out of its holster and jam it against the stretch of synthetic skin between ear and jaw.

The Agnoid looked up at him, a glint in its eye. "Smegin' Bulb," it said.

Rimmer pulled the trigger. Kickback from the mini-EMP interfered with his circuits, creating a feedback loop with his physical continuity routines and making him nauseous.

Rimmer staggered back. Just between jaw and neck he could feel a serrated scrap of metal, held together with a bad weld job. Blood was sluicing down his neck. He fell to his knees.

He could bleed now. He could bleed to death.

Rimmer caught up his utility knife and flicked out the pliers. With one shaking hand he tried to grab the edge of the metal sticking out of his neck. It took several tries, but, _finally_, he got a solid grip. Rimmer braced himself.

He never remembered screaming, but the ravine echoed it back so he must have.

A chunk of metal hit the dirt beside him. He hit the dirt beside it a second later, moaning and curling into a fetal position.

He felt the flesh of his neck crawl, knitting itself back together. The stream of blood became a trickle.

He pushed himself to his knees. He felt weak. Too weak. He fished in his pockets and brought out a pulse-hypo. Its contents gleamed a dark red. With a flick he pressed it to his neck. It emptied with a hiss. The rush of voxels steadied his hands and made his vision brighter.

He fished beside himself for the lump of metal he'd torn out of his throat. It was a Jaw, a metal trip mine made out of four spring-loaded meat hooks. Once jammed inside a major hologrammatic artery it sprang open, keeping the wound from closing. Eventually, voxel loss sent the hologram into a paroxysm, paralyzed and repeating the final seconds before death.

Rimmer kicked the simulant over and stripped him of two amo-belts, both packed with Jaws. He stripped the other simulants of their weapons as well. Each Jaw he found was encrusted with coagulated voxels... all that was left of some hologram or other.

He ground his teeth as he scraped the voxel blood off one Jaw with his nail.

Rimmer hooked the Jaw to his belt and slung the rest over his shoulder. As he stumbled back across the dry ravine to the embankment, he paged through readouts on the local conditions, relayed to his psyscan from one of the Omega satellites in orbit. The clusters of simulants he'd noted earlier still hadn't moved.

They were hundreds of miles off, at any rate.

He mounted the crumbling rock of the embankment, scrambling his way back to his stowed gear. Once he found it he dragged it into a crack in one of the huge boulders by the ravine edge, a crack big enough to be called a cave. He crawled in, pulling his gear in behind him.

The voxel system meant lots of things to his hygiene routine. He couldn't give it a miss now and then, for a start. Unless he wanted to look and smell like moldy blue cheese after a dip in the septic tank.

Rimmer unpacked his satchel. Comb. Toothbrush. Toothpaste. Dental floss. Razor. Shaving gel. Aftershave. Soap. Deodorant. Not the aerosol anti-perspirant that made him break out in a rash, the roll-on kind. Nothing was missing.

He arranged his items alphabetically on his canvas drop cloth. He eyed them. He tried arranging them by color. Then height.

Eventually he gave up and rearranged them in reverse alphabetical simply because it made no sense to apply his aftershave _before_ using his razor.

Then he repacked everything and hiked his knees up to his chest. The voxel replenishing pulse hypo he'd used was his second-to-last. He'd have to go back to Tween's only Omega city to get more.

Rimmer leaned his chin on his knees. He watched Tween's pink sky darken to red, then purple. He'd seen it hundreds of times before.

Stars came out, thin in number and dimmer then he remembered. It was a dying universe. Or so the Omegas said.

Rimmer cracked open a chemical fire packet and set it down between his feet. Like the simulants, cold could hurt him, could freeze up his voxels and paralyze him.

He stared at the fire and took out a list. A while back he'd written down the names of people he'd known in his life. People he figured he should make an effort to remember.

He'd started after he woke up in the middle of the night and realized he'd forgotten what his mum looked like. Whatever the stimulant had done with his upgrades had made Rimmer's memory of the time before the Omega ship faint and disjointed.

He looked at his list. At first he'd alphabetized it, but then he'd decided to rank it in order of importance.

His mum was first out of a sense that that was the way it should be. But he could barely remember her. All he knew now was that he felt spiteful joy at _not_ remembering her. _Take_ that, _mum_.

Then his dad. At least, he knew he _had_ a dad. Or must. For some reason the thought that his had been a virgin birth gave him the giggles. So he must have a dad.

Next was a space. A space Rimmer kept trying to fill, over and over again, with names. Nothing came to him. He just knew someone should be filling it.

After that space came a name, listed twice. Dave Lister.

When he'd first written out the list, he'd been very careful to list Dave_twice_. He wasn't sure why, _now_. His memories of Lister were fresh. He was on-board the Omega Silo ship. The one that would rendezvous with him in another few months. Lister had the same problem _he_ had, except in reverse. Rimmer was losing his long term memory; Lister had lost his short.

Just as Rimmer began the arduous process of reconstructing Lister's image from memory, his proximity alarm started to vibrate.

He unclipped it from his belt and looked at it. Something was moving in his general direction. It was erratic and halting, but getting too close for comfort.

Rimmer folded his list and stowed it back in his inner pocket. He checked his psyscan. The clusters of simulants picked up by the EM monitoring satellite were still far off and unmoving.

He set it back down. Sometimes the equipment didn't work right. It created ghosts, echoes, and sometimes didn't pick up simulant signatures when it should. Rimmer'd just recovered from an equipment error; he couldn't afford ignoring a possible threat.

With a sigh, Rimmer pushed his gear deeper into the cave and slung his sniper rifle over his shoulder.

As he struggled through the rocky terrain towards the signal, he judged the best place to ambush whatever was out there. At some point he found the twisting remains of a GELF tree, left from a terraforming operation millennia dead. He slid into its rotted out core and watched his proximity sensor blink out the location and movement of… whatever it was.

Ten minutes later Rimmer gave up waiting. The thing was meandering like a drunk weasel.

A few more minutes jog got him within eyeshot of the thing. He dropped to the ground and watched it through the sniper scope.

It didn't look like a stimulant. It just looked like a skinny, disorientated man, wandering in semi-circles.

Was it human? Rimmer hunched back, checking his psyscan again. No simulants were registered. No major EM activity at all. It had to be GELF.

Rimmer pulled the EMP cartridge out of his rifle and reloaded it with hollow-points. Whatever it was, he wasn't going to take a chance.

His scanner scope calculated the distance and wind velocity. Even air density. Rimmer evaluated each and adjusted accordingly.

The first bullet thudded into the ground just short. Rimmer'd never been a great shot, and hadn't needed to be, since EMPs didn't need to score direct hits to work. The second and third went wide to the left. The fourth _seemed_ to hit the thing in the chest, go through and spit up dirt behind it. The creature remained upright and unaffected except for a few bemused glances left and right.

Rimmer shot it again. Same problem. It went straight through.

Rimmer pushed himself to his feet in disgust and ran full tilt towards it, pulling his .44 out.

It looked up at the sound of his footsteps, mouth gaping.

Rimmer brought his gun up, point blank and shot it in the face.

The thing blinked and the shot thudded into the dirt behind it.

"What the smeg?" Rimmer thrust an elbow towards its face. Nothing connected. The momentum sent him stumbling through the figure. Something small bounced off his thigh and the thing's image jerked and restabilized a few feet distant.

A hologram. An _ancient_ hologram.

It waved its hands in confusion, its mouth gaping open and closed like a stranded fish. "John?" it said.

Rimmer stared at it. It stared back. A watery, indistinct _thing_. Helpless. Harmless. But it could be a diversion. Rimmer's gaze skimmed the horizon, then he took out his psyscan and checked for stimulant signatures. Still nothing.

"John?" It asked again.

Rimmer felt a slight electrical charge as its arm swept through his body. "Don't touch me." Rimmer turned back and glared at it.

"Aren't you John?" It looked at him, almost pleading. "I have no idea where I am."

"No, I'm not John. Now go away, you wretched piece of consumer waste." Rimmer flicked his hand at it and stalked off.

Rimmer picked up his sniper rifle where he'd left it and set off towards his temporary shelter. He needed rest or his voxel loss would turn critical.

At some point he realized the hologram was following him. Rimmer stopped and let it catch up to him.

With a swipe he caught its light bee and squeezed his fist till he could feel the metal casing begin to give. He stared into the thing's terrified eyes and said, slowly, "Go away."

"John?" It repeated, seeming to melt with fear.

"Piss off." Rimmer let go of its light bee.

This time it stayed still, watching him mournfully as Rimmer backed away into the night.

(ooo)

The Jaws clattered into the smelting pot. Gas hissed as flames lapped the pitted bottom.

The Company simulant counted another baker's dozen of Rimmer's stolen Jaws—Simulants liked the number 13—and threw them in as well.

"That's it then, bulb?" The stimulant picked at his lumpy tweed suit. Between him and Rimmer was a three inch shield of plexi. The shield had been perforated with a length of broken rebar pipe from some prior transaction. Another piece of the pipe stuck out of the simulant's head.

Rimmer patted down his pockets. "Yes." The skin of his neck felt wobbly, like the clear, gelatinous material on top of liver paste. He knew if he turned around he'd find old man bulb—what he decided he'd call the ancient hologram he'd found—staring at him. The pathetic bastard turned his stomach and made him shiver but he couldn't get rid of him.

And maybe he didn't want too. Not after he'd inadvertently saved Rimmer's arse by wandering into an unmarked nest of insurgent simulants and providing a hysterical distraction while Rimmer picked them off. Rimmer had liked that. Let the useless tin bee offer up a diversion. Got the job done quicker without Rimmer risking his voxels. Win-win.

The stimulant pitched a few plastic tokens at the slot in the shield. Rimmer caught them up, did a quick count then slammed them back on the desk. "What's this? I gave you five counts of thirteen, you squib-brained rectal tear."

"An' you got three tokens." The simulant's lips flinched into a grin. "Cost a' business gone up. For you."

"I'll cut your brain out of your skull!" Rimmer grabbed one edge of the rebar and pulled it out. It squealed, spitting flecks of white as it was wrenched from the plexi. Rimmer slammed it against the shield, causing a crack to spider out from the hole the pipe had left.

The simulant's grin twisted shut. He started to crank down his secondary flack shield.

Rimmer pulled back to give the plexi another wallop.

And found his arm caught tight.

He turned around to pull it free and found himself face to face with a puffy sable bouffant. He blinked and glanced below it. Two chamois eyes peered up at him from a heart shaped face.

"Arnold, is that you?"

"What?" Rimmer wrenched back on his arm.

She let him go.

"Arrest him!" The stimulant pounded on his desk.

The woman's eyes flicked from Rimmer to the stimulant. "The Company has posted its current exchange—" her voice was familiar. It tugged a mournful note in Rimmer. "—undercutting is a capitol offense."

"What? You can't prove it, bulb!"

"You've already a warning on your record, G'ad x'Tara Ength. One more and the Unionists will dismantle you." The woman looked quite stern. And pretty, in a stern, firm-featured way.

Rimmer melted a little bit. And not just because she was on his side.

The stimulant tipped two more tokens into the slot. His face was dangerous.

Rimmer snapped them up and, with a twist to his lips and a glare shot over his shoulder, walked out of the Apocathery.

"Wait!" The Unionist woman shouted after him.

Old man bulb scuttled a half step behind Rimmer. Rimmer kept going. As much as he appreciated the woman interceding on his behalf, being seen consorting with a Unionist in public might get a smuggled Jaw to the throat from a Company Stimulant. Besides, Rimmer had heard of high-pressure Unionist sales tactics. Pushing Unionist member benefits such as not getting your nose—or any other useful appendage—cut off. It would regenerate, of course. But the voxels were _expensive_. Rimmer preferred to remain a separate, low-profile entity and stay out of Unionist-Stimulant blood feuds.

"Wait!" The woman called again. And when he didn't stop she sprinted past him and parked herself in his way.

He paused only a moment, sneered at her and pushed her to the side. "Not interested!"

"You've benefited, you know!" She called after him. "You're Unionist now!"

Rimmer hunched his shoulders, half stopping. Of course. Never a free lunch, everything has a catch. He wanted to tear up his tokens.

Several simulants stopped to watch the drama. This had, obviously, been her plan.

Rimmer turned. "You Unionist recruiter bitch."

"Look, you wouldn't stop." She said, her hands open in a gesture of apology. "I wanted to talk. But not here." She glanced around her. "Will you come with me?"

"Why should I?"

"Because we're old… friends." She looked up at him through her long eyelashes in a way he found sickeningly manipulative and enchanting.

He let her guide him onto a backstreet between the grey husks of two House-Gelf carcasses—their papery hide pulled taunt between rounded rib-girders.

A smear of motion hitched his peripheral vision. Old man bulb was standing just at the mouth, staring gap mouthed at the House-Gelf skull ramparts, four stories above the street. Then he began wandering in dazed arcs down the backstreet, scaring two cat-gelfs, shagging behind a living Gelf-garbage bin. They screeched something about fish and clawed away up a wall to a first story balcony. There they continued their noisy tete-a-tete.

Rimmer grimaced, uncomfortably aroused by the Gelf-Cats' immodesty. He glanced down at the concrete. Without turning towards the Unionist woman, he asked, "What do you want?"

She pulled close to him, forcing him to look at her. "Don't you remember me?" She searched his face. "Nirvana? Nirvana Crane?"

He pushed her away. "Look, if you want sex, just…" He still couldn't look her in the face for some reason. Instead he looked at her shoes. "Go away. Not interested." He'd done_that_ enough over the years. Voxels did everything, _everything_ like real humans, except get pregnant and get sick. So sex happened. A lot. Out of boredom, desperation, terror, or some fragment of instinct. Two years coming to the Company town, and Rimmer'd been clawed into more then one clinch.

Now the thought of it made him nauseous. He had some vague memory that men should be always ready and eager—at least with attractive women such as this Nirvana—but he hadn't been to begin with—nerves or some such—and he was even less so now.

The Unionist woman, Nirvana… she bowed her head, her shoulder's heaving. With what? Laughter?

Rimmer stared at her.

She looked back up at him and he saw tears in her eyes. "Same as always." Nirvana sighed and brushed the wet from her eyes with her thumbs.

They lapsed into silence.

Rimmer relaxed a hair. She wasn't after sex at least and no Unionist sales tactics, yet. "So… when did you know me?" He hesitated, then added. "If you ever knew me, that is."

Nirvana pursed her lips, seeming to count silently. "We met four years ago. On board my old ship, the Enlightenment. We were soft-light holograms then. You were living life as a ghost on a non-hologrammatic ship. You had a chance for a real life aboard my ship. But you threw all that away to save my life."

Rimmer perked. "I was heroic?"

She laughed out loud. "Not as such." In response to his scowl she added hastily. "To me you were. Very heroic. I've never forgotten you." Nirvana slipped her arms around his chest.

Rimmer held his breath.

"I've a met few versions of you since. They never remember me. Not one…"

"A few versions?" Rimmer asked.

"Yes. I've met myself, too. Another me. It's like time cracked open and all of us, past, present and future, spilled out onto Tween." Her hold tightened and she laid her head against his chest.

Instead of making him jittery, it soothed him. He touched her hair. It was soft despite being heavily styled. He noticed she had red paint crevassed in the upper arc of her ear.

"I'm glad you've come back." She whispered into his grey parka.

He held her shoulders and let her cry against him.

(ooo)

It was inevitable. She lead him in silence across Company Town to the Unionist section, led him up a flight of dead House-gelf-stair-toes that flaked under his boots to a small apartment on the third floor. She'd opened the gelf-hide door and lead him inside. It smelled of burnt horse-hair and her.

She'd let him scrub the blood from under his nails, shave, and brush his tangled matt of frizz while she combed the stiffness out of her hair till it lay in a sleek line down her back.

She stepped out of her clothes then, and in the murky pink light from the cataract-hazed window, she was like something he'd dreamed up.

He pulled off his parka. Her hair slipped across his thighs as she knelt at his feet. He wished his trousers away. They stayed put. She unlaced his boots and her hair tickled his ankles.

He pulled her up and into the bed behind them.

She unbuttoned his trousers, and, just like that, he was inside her.

Sweat pricked his forehead and cheeks. He felt flushed and stunned, paralyzed. He remembered why _this_ had frightened him before. The Voxel system replicated sex with an urgent clarity that made Rimmer feel like he was breaking apart.

He shook against Nirvana and she held him.

Rimmer slid open inside and, for a moment, his former self slipped over him like a sheath and he felt… humiliated… and then he did remember. He did know her and he'd given up_everything_ for her. But not really, because he hadn't given up_him_.

He felt like a sham and his guilt shuddered through him. She loved him. Maybe.

And he loved her.

Maybe.

(ooo)

Nirvana sat by her vanity in a watered silk dressing gown. It was old and patched, and the green was more grey then green, but still, she wore it with elegance. She pinned her hair up in careful curls.

Rimmer watched her as he laced his boots. He wasn't going to stay.

"You're leaving," she said, without sentiment.

He'd liked that about her. She was not a sentimental woman. But she was compassionate.

"I've got to go get hypos." He lied. Well, not about the hypos, but about the suggestion that he was coming back.

"Yes," she replied.

He pulled on his parka.

"Those other versions of me… Where did you find them?"

"A friend of yours showed them to me. Perhaps you remember him? His name was Ace."

Rimmer shook his head, "Don't remember him." He stood and walked towards the door. As his fingers touched the bone door knob he half turned. "Why me?" He heard her shift.

"I liked who you became when you felt wanted."

Rimmer's hand fell from the door. He glanced at Nirvana.

"I thought I could fall in love with you." She unpinned a curl and brushed it.

"_Thought_?" Rimmer's voice came out a nasal whine. He closed his mouth with a snap, stunned at the sound.

She held up her hand. "It's not all about _you_, you neurotic mess!" She seemed to choke and her hands fell into her lap as her back and shoulders stiffened.

Rimmer waited, unsure.

After a moment he broke the silence. "I might be your Arnold."

She nodded, her eyes closed. "I haven't been a Unionist long."

Rimmer reached for the door knob. _Here it comes._

Nirvana glanced at him " This isn't a recruitment speech. I became a Unionist after I saw myself."

"Another version of you?"

She didn't answer. "We've all been changed. Every one of us. It's not obvious in the beginning." She took a breath and picked up her brush. "Those of us who felt more fear _before_, the change is faster." Nirvana turned to him. "Before all this." She opened her hands wide. "I was a frightened person."

"What are you saying?"

"Rambling." She chuckled and picked up her brush. "I wish I had met you, though. _My_ you. It would have been nice. Just one time more."

Rimmer straightened. "I'll come back."

"If you want." Nirvana replied, airily. She was looking _through_ him, or maybe into him. But there was nothing connecting.

He turned away, insulted. "Goodbye."

(ooo)

Rimmer didn't come back at first. He spent a week, maybe a fortnight wandering through the Company town in a vague stupor. He'd gotten into the habit of drinking. He didn't do it well, and the voxel system, which couldn't quite simulate a drunk with any degree of accuracy, hadn't helped. So he'd wandered around half-dazed—feeling more like he'd swallowed too much cough syrup—then having worked up a unsympathetic, week-long drunk.

After spending a confused twenty minutes in the midst of a cat argument over his sleeping spot on top of a heating vent, he'd sobered up.

And he went back.

The stairs crunched and flaked some more under his feet. When he knocked on it, the door swung open.

Nirvana wasn't in. And her smell had gone with her.

Rimmer walked in, feeling like an intruder.

Her bed was made; her boots were gone.

He sat down at her vanity.

Sunlight slanted through her window, tracing a slow path across the floor. Rimmer sat with his head in his hands. If she hadn't been so insulting he would have come back sooner. It was her fault. He bit his knuckle.

"Hullo comrade."

He glanced up. A man stood in the doorway. He had on a unionist collar. It was faintly copper in the dim light.

"You shouldn't be in here. It's Unionist property—"

"Nirvana, where is she?"

"The woman?" The unionist scratched his chin. "Retired, I s'pect."

"What does that mean?"

The man brightened. "Not a unionist? Retirement is the central Unionist benefit. You should consider it. A dignified way to end a career with the Company."

"What does it mean?" Rimmer repeated, loosing his temper.

"Mean's she's deactivated, comrade. Dead." The man shrugged. "Better then going—" He rotated a finger around his temple. "Eh. What's up with you?"

Rimmer was standing and swaying. He wasn't feeling any particular emotion. No. What he was experiencing was too vivid to be an emotion. A tide of white-hot noise had risen through him, drowning out every other internal sound.

Rimmer threw the unionist down the stairs. He only had time for a surprised grunt before he hit the bottom landing with a thud. His voxels pulsed, and his skin split, spilling. The unionist began screaming.

As Rimmer stepped over the man, the splatter of red over the landing startled him. He remembered the arc of Nirvana's ear. Recognition jarred him.


	18. Unionist Operative

-1Red Dwarf Fanfic: Last Humans

Chapter 16: Unionist Operative

Summary(flashback): Wherein Rimmer-as-Ace is motivated by tragedy, Ace makes a reappearance and Ace and Rimmer-as-Ace get it on(in order to save the universe, of course.)

Warnings: Language, sexual situations, slash, violence, Ace/Rimmer

Beta: Rack

Chapter Rating: M(16 )

(ooo)

Unionist Operative

(ooo)

The Unionists caught up with him in the GELF-cat slum. He heard them shouting over the matted, hissing crowds.

Rimmer half-expected it. He ducked between a dumpster and a broken-down freighter, frightening a black and white GELF-cat from its part-eaten vacuum-beast corpse. Rimmer wrinkled his nose and pulled a Jaw from his pack.

The first Unionist just walked past. Just like that.

Rimmer looped her throat with a length of chain and she fell, sputtering, against the ground. He slammed the Jaw into her throat and pinned her down with his shoulder, forcing her face first into the dirt.

She struggled, a moment, maybe more, then something died in her eyes and she gave up.

As she twitched through the last few seconds of life, and then repeated them, over and over in a loop, Rimmer stared. He'd killed one of his own. Not a Agnoid insurgent, not even a creepy company Simulant who probably had it coming.

A hologram. A human.

The voxel skin bled away from her corpse, crawling into the dirt, glinting, exposing a mass of dissolving organs and tissues. Rimmer's knee sunk into red, stinking muck, her voxels rapidly loosing whatever shape her mind had given them. Her soft light hologram reformed around his leg, glowing and indistinct. But the shock of her death was too much for it; it broke apart, then reformed, noisy and spitting.

Rimmer fished out her light bee and crushed it. It started to squeal. He dropped it and ran out onto the street, streaked with crusted voxels.

More Unionists had turned towards the sound.

He ploughed into the first, startling him—scored a Jaw in the man's thigh—and kept running.

There would be more. He was sure of it. The Unionists were tight and they took care of their own.

(ooo)

By sunrise Rimmer was surrounded.

He'd killed six. Maybe more. Maybe less. And they'd cornered him up on a roof with three cat-GELFS, quivering with fear and hissing at him.

It was a adobe-style roof with a three foot wall around the flat roof-top. The GELF-house had been a Spanish breed. Rimmer glanced over the edge.

He was out of EMP bullets. Not that they did much against an army of voxel holograms.

"You're a deadly one, comrade," said a Unionist with a megaphone. "They put a lot of work into you."

Rimmer unclenched his fingers from his thigh. He'd got cut and the wound hadn't healed. He was out of voxels. Everything that had happened—he'd forgotten that one simple task—get the bleeding hypos. Rimmer leaned back against the wall.

A strange faintness was coming over him. He'd felt voxel loss before. This was different. Fear was throbbing through him, and pleasure. The two were becoming one.

"You'll be feeling it now," said the voice. "The End Times, comrade. We all recognize them."

Rimmer had to dig his fingers into his arms to keep the shaking under control. He thought of jumping. Right into that crowd of smug Unionist bastards, and breaking them into pieces with his bare hands.

He let go of his arms, looked at his fingers and giggled.

"It doesn't matter how many of us you kill. We're ready to die. But we're not here to kill you. We're here to offer you a way out." The voice paused. "Do you want to know who you were? Who Nirvana was?"

At her name Rimmer stood and turned to the assembled Unionists, his arms outstretched. He smiled at them. The Unionists brought up their guns.

One of the GELF-cats slammed into his back, gibbering.

The ground rushed up to meet him and the frantic cat attached to his back by four sets of claws.

(ooo)

"We want you to kill our eminent leader," the unionist explained. "That's why we captured you instead of killing you." His collar was threaded with platinum. His skin was a grayish shade of brown and he looked eager. A second Unionist in blue with a bronze collar sat beside him. He looked put upon.

"Your leader?"

The Unionists nodded solemnly. Rimmer pressed an ice pack against his ringing head. He was in a warehouse, sitting on a folding chair at a folding table with two Unionist men. They'd been quite nice to him, actually. Scraped him up, extricated him from the cat and shot him full of ephedrine. It had mellowed him. He felt mellow. Quite mellow. Like the day Frank had lost three of his _permanent_ front teeth trying jump Rimmer's bike across the bio-dome cistern. And the dentist had said it would take two months to grow replacements.

Rimmer sat up.

"What's wrong?" Asked the brown, put upon Unionist.

"Do you have a pencil?" Rimmer fished in his pocket for his paper.

The blue-suited Unionist passed over a pencil.

Rimmer set down his ice pack and carefully wrote "Frank" in the space he'd left under "dad". He knew that wasn't the only name that should fill the space. But it was a start.

"Will you kill our leader?"

Rimmer didn't answer. He eyed the space after "Dave Lister" and added, "Nirvana." His hand shook. He tried to hold it still. His arm shook. He slammed it down against the table. "Is something wrong?"

Rimmer leaned over his knees, clutching his chest. His body was clenched tight, so tight it had squeezed his mind out the back. He felt like he was floating some six inches behind his own head. It was agonizing and absurd all at the same time.

He began to laugh. He laughed till he choked and the Unionists bolted over to pound on his back.

He waved them away, "What happened to her?"

They discussed his question in hushed tones Rimmer couldn't make out. Finally the bronze-collared one asked, "Do you mean Nirvana?"

Rimmer leaned his head into his hand and nodded.

The bronze unionist turned back to Rimmer. "All of us look out for each other. When any one of us begins to show… to show the End Times, we take care of it."

"What? End times? Take care of what?"

"You've started to show them, comrade. The End Times. Uncontrollable anger, disregard for hologrammatic life… How long have you been a part of the Company?"

"I don't know. Wait." Rimmer dug into a pocket under his parka. "I kept my receipts." He looked at his oldest, a yellowed, yet carefully creased, receipt of exchange. Four hypos for a token. "It says two zero period four four period eight one."

"Two years, comrade?"

"I suppose so." Rimmer folded his receipt and placed it back in his pocket. "Two years." Had it been that long?

"_Just_ two years?" The bronze Unionist repeated.

Rimmer flicked the pencil at him. "What's your point, you cultist smeggot?"

"Usually it takes two hundred years, sometimes three. But _two_?"

The platinum Unionist set his hand on his fellow's shoulder, "Quiet, comrade. Each case is unique." He looked to Rimmer, "Please, will you help us?"

"I don't understand what you want."

"Our leader—Blessings Be—has showed signs of the End Times. He has become erratic and violent. Two months ago he took my ranking comrade hostage and has hidden somewhere in the bowels of Scrap Warren." The platinum unionist steepled his fingers. "We want you to find our esteemed leader and kill him. If you are able, please bring back my ranking Comrade. He is not suffering from the End Times."

"How did… I mean, I don't understand. How did Nirvana get involved with you?"

"Did you not hear our cry for help, comrade?" The bronze unionist was getting agitated. Rimmer eyed him with distaste.

The higher-ranking unionist caught his comrade's arm to silence him. "Our leader—blessings be—offered her succor in our ranks. She accepted. We carried out his wishes, and hers, by saving her from the End Times."

"So your leader is the reason she's dead?" Rimmer ground his teeth. "Why are you so sure I can kill him?" Although he was well motivated to do just that, now.

"You killed a half dozen holograms, each showing advanced state of End Times, making them doubly dangerous." The platinum Unionist's brown brow wrinkled. "You are fearless, comrade."

Rimmer huffed a bit from the compliment.

"You must have been a fantastic coward in the Other Life." The platinum Unionist said, with reverence.

"And our leader was very specific that _you_ be the one to kill him."

(ooo)

Somehow Old Man Bulb found Rimmer again as he walked to Scrap Warren. The hologram didn't say anything, just shuffled along behind him.

Rimmer ignored him, till ignoring him got irritating and he turned to face the bit of holo-deitrus, "Why are you following me?"

Old Man Bulb didn't answer. He averted his eyes and shuffled past Rimmer.

"Look. Whoever you think I am, I'm not. I'm not named John." Rimmer resumed walking.

From behind, Rimmer could see the hologram nod his head.

"So why…?"

"I think I have something to tell you."

"What?"

"Not now." Old Man Bulb shook his head. "I'll tell you soon. I think."

Rimmer lashed out, catching Bulb by the bee. "Tell me now." He closed his fist, and, again, felt the bee shudder and jerk between his fingers.

The hologram gave off a low keen of terror. And then he passed out.

Rimmer snorted in disgust, slipping the bee in his pocket. It looked absurd, having Old Man Bulb's body stuck to his hip, bent over at the waist and flailing weightlessly against the ground. Rimmer would have left him, but he didn't have it in him. Not then. Not when he had to figure out who Nirvana was. Who _he_ was. And why she'd done something so stupid as to arrange her own death with this unionist cult leader.

_If you'd come back sooner_… Rimmer swatted away the voice. _Smeg off_.

(ooo)

Warren swelled up out of the caked mud of Tween like a frozen tidal wave. Light glinted off of billions of bits of impacted metal and glass. As Rimmer wound his way through the crevasses and canyons made of technological waste, the surface of it appeared to undulate like a wave. It made him dizzy.

He squeezed a packet of voxel simulated nutrients into his mouth, hoping the infusion might help the vertigo.

Old Man Bulb, still unconscious, flopped over rusted barrels and burnt out star transport parts as Rimmer dragged him along.

"Hello!"

Rimmer jerked back, laying flat against an outcropping of prefab steel. He glanced around for the source of the voice. It echoed off the canyon wall's sheer crags and jetties.

"I know you're here for me!"

Rimmer's brow furrowed as he tried to place the voice. He dumped Old Man's bee out of his pocket and pulled his shot-gun from his shoulder holster. His sniper rifle was uselessly precise.

"I can see you. You've got your shotgun out. You might as well drop it. I don't think you have a chance, sad-sack."

Rimmer breathed deep, managing to abort an involuntary flinch. The cultist was trying to get one over on him.

"I don't want to fight you." The voice was closer.

Rimmer picked Old Man up and skipped him across the canyon floor. It was an absurd sight, his arms and legs bouncing and popping out all over as he hit rocks and garbage, like a scarecrow sliding down hill in a hail storm.

Rimmer heard a footfall, felt a hesitation, a moment's confusion.

He lashed out of his hiding spot, managing to come under and up behind the cult leader. Rimmer pressed the muzzle of his shotgun into the man's back, "Turn around." At least he assumed it was his back. The man was covered, head to toe, with layers of black cloth studded with bits of metal flotsam.

Metal clinked together as the cult leader's body heaved—laughter. "You are good." The man shifted, letting the black cloth fall away from his head as he turned to face Rimmer.

His hair was longish and blond, his expression smugly amused. He _was_ very familiar.

Rimmer brought up his shot gun, leveling it at the man's chest. "What's this?"

"You don't remember me, old chum?" The man flicked back his blond hair and eyed Rimmer meaningfully. "I remember you. Although, you have changed. Not so much of a sad sack-now, eh?"

A name filtered up through the murk. "Ace," Rimmer spat. He didn't really remember anything about the man, but the name called up equal parts anger and envy and disgust.

"So you _do_ remember? Well, spank my naked ass and call me a choirboy!"

Rimmer groaned. Oh yes. It was coming back. He let the muzzle of the shot gun drop.

Ace pulled a cheroot from his pocket and pressed it between his lips. "Does that mean we're friends, Rimsey?" He nodded at the shotgun.

Without taking his eyes off of Ace, Rimmer reholstered his shotgun. "It means you're in arm's reach."

(ooo)

"Have a cup of joe." Ace slipped a cracked mug of thick black liquid in front of Rimmer, before turning around in the clapped-together shack to pour a rusted tin can for himself.

Rimmer sniffed at the coffee, then took a skeptical sip. Before he could taste it, the oily, bitter smell hit the back of his nose like a whip crack. He spat it out and wiped his mouth. "What the smeg?"

"Sorry. I like it stiff and salty." Ace took a generous swallow and grinned at Rimmer's revulsion.

"Tinfoil fairy." Rimmer took a deliberate mouthful, refusing to be out-butched by a man with flowing gold locks.

"Same old Arn," Ace grinned.

Rimmer glanced at the pile of packed oily rags that made up the back rest of his makeshift, steel rope spool chair. "Do you have some sort of towel, perhaps? Hopefully clean."

Ace laughed and tossed Rimmer a grayish knit throw. Rimmer hesitated over it. Something about it, the lumpy, knitted quality of it, plucked a feeling of lonely homishness. He shrugged it away and lay the throw down over the rags. That done, he settled back, knee up and arm resting against it. Horrible slop glinted in his mug. "So, Miss World of Tomorrow, tell me why shouldn't I kill you?"

"Because a gentleman never threatens a lady." Ace chortled into his cup. "Because I know more about you then you could imagine."

Rimmer's lips flattened into a line. He set his mug down on the box crate-cum-coffee table. "What makes you think I care?"

Ace poured himself another cup of coffee and stirred flakes of voxel sugar into it. He stared at himself, reflected.

"You can't ans—"

"Every morning you wake up and shed more and more of yourself. Thoughts, memories, names… You write lists to help you remember, but then you forget why you wrote the list. I know. I can help."

Rimmer's eyes narrowed. "This is all Black Noise."

"Insurgent talk? Yep." He took a swallow from his can. "The Company's been after me for ages. They know who I am, or they suspect. They make you crave violence, then they unleash you on a planet full of Agnoid insurgents. Kill or be killed. Kill till your mind erodes. Simple rules, simple walls to keep us confined. I've watched it for generations of voxel holograms. And then I decided to create the Union. Mercy for the condemned."

Rimmer leaned forward. "Is that what you offered Nirvana? Mercy?"

"Nirvana?" Ace glanced up at him. "Who?"

"You don't know her?" Rimmer's voice came out falsetto.

"Wait. The Crane girl, right? Yes. I remember. There have been so many over the years; it's hard to keep track. She saw herself, a version of herself, in the Warren pit. Simulants were using her other self – probably caught and culled from a different holoship decades before she ended up here –to fight, like an animal. No sense of love or humanity or even dignity. Watching herself, seeing what she would become, it brought up old feelings of terror. So she sought us out."

Rimmer's hand jerked to his Jaw-knife. His chest felt like it'd been punched and his first thought that Ace had attacked him.. But Ace was still sitting, staring blankly into his coffee. Rimmer raised a shaking hand to his collar; his throat convulsed under his hand. He began to choke.

"Are you okay, old bean?"

Rimmer swallowed his heaves. "So that's it then." His voice was thin. "If I believe you, that is."

"You get to the point where you forget you ever loved anyone."

"I never _did_ love anyone." Rimmer squeezed his hands together. "Never once."

"Oh?"

Rimmer laughed. "So that's what it is? That's what courage is? Just a switch in our brain?"

"I don't know."

"All I wanted was…" Rimmer began, his words tasting as bitter as Ace's coffee.

"What?"

Rimmer strained to remember. Snow. The smell of burning camphor wood. Wooden toy soldiers. Terrible gibberish, all of it. He leaned over his thighs, feeling like he was about to pitch over.

"To be loved." Ace supplied. "Easy answer. We all want that. I want the whole universe to love me." Ace took a sip of coffee. "I think your desires might be a mouse's nose more modest. To be loved by one person."

Rimmer felt queasy. "Where did you get all this _nonsense_?"

"Nonsense? You know, you are as see-through as a pair of white peek-a-boos in a wet pants contest. I _know_ all this about you because I've met you, oh, a couple thousand times in other dimensions and gathered up a couple more thousand _yous _in this one." Ace fished out a tin of biscuits. He opened them and offered Rimmer a moldy voxel shortbread.

Rimmer grimaced and waved it away.

Ace set the tin on the table. "Funny how I've spent the better part of my life studying a warped, weasily reflection of myself."

(ooo)

"So what do you know about me?" Rimmer asked. He'd followed Ace out back of his slummy shed. The man pulled a tarp off of some piece of broken-up machinery. Rimmer eyed it. It looked something like a oversized cappuccino machine mated with an ancient oil derrick.

"More Black Noise," Ace said. Rimmer didn't know if Ace meant the machine or the answer to his question. Then he looked closer at the contraption Ace had unwrapped.

Rimmer tripped backwards, steadying himself against a rusted transport door stuck out of the trash mound behind him. "That's—"

"Yep. The man who created it was an enemy of the Omega Group. Nice fellow. Looks a lot like a friend of yours."

Rimmer sniffed. "So this is how you survive? Illegal voxel mining?"

"Among other things."

"I could get executed just for standing next to it." Rimmer leaned back against the door to Ace's shack.

"Does that worry you?" Ace asked.

Rimmer's nostrils flared. "You know the answer to that. It irritates me. You irritate me."

"Do I?" Ace raised an eyebrow and looked at Rimmer in a way that made Rimmer's skin twitch. "Regardless, I'm here to help."

Rimmer stared down at the hard packed dirt under his boots. "I don't need _your_ help." Another wave of vertigo overwhelmed him. He slumped backwards till a hand hit the shack wall. He steadied himself. Ace stepped to his side just as his knees buckled, easing him down.

Ace stood over Rimmer. "You do need me. At the very least you need voxels. And I can give you yourself back." Ace laughed. "Not that _that's_ much of a gift." He walked back to his machine and pulled a lever, placing a grimy shot glass under one of the spigots. The machine shuddered. The central piston began to churn up and down. Steaming silvery glop dripped into the shot glass and spat up a few bubbles. Ace offered it to Rimmer. "You're low. Top up."

"You expect me to ingest that?"

Ace tilted the shot glass, regarding it. Then nodded.

"Give it to me." Rimmer waved for it. Ace handed it over.

It stank of iron and iodine. Rimmer grimaced. He tipped it to his lips and swallowed. It burned, scraping away a layer of cells from his tongue and throat, but a certain viscous warmth flowed through him in its wake.

Ace fished a bottle out of the pile of junk at the foot of the machine. He filled it and walked over to Rimmer. "These voxels are very raw. Not re-conditioned. You'll probably feel disorientated." Ace slid down the door till he was sitting. He poured another shot in Rimmer's glass. "Drink up."

Rimmer's second shot went down easier then the first. "Where does it come from?"

Ace tipped another shot into his glass. "An illegal drill hole. We're right over a deep seam of rotted voxels. Billions of voxel holograms—the remnants of humanity—were buried here over the years. The whole planet's core is a graveyard. Well, a garbage dump at any rate."

Rimmer spat out a mouthful of voxels, "I'm drinking someone's corpse?"

Ace laughed, knocking back his drink. "You could see it that way. It's what you're made of. Bits and pieces of billions of recycled corpses." Ace tilted his glass so the rim caught the light from one of his proximity lamps. "The Omega Group gets its voxels from the same place."

Rimmer sipped what was left of his glass, gagging slightly.

"How are you feeling?"

Rimmer grunted, pulling his legs in till he was sitting cross-legged. Ace poured him some more. Even knowing what they were, Rimmer drank. Staying alive was one disgusting thing after another. And the voxels were relaxing him, giving him a sense of well-being. His automatic systems finally getting what they needed to patch up all the tears and cracks. He glanced up over Ace's proximity lamps, looking at the sky. It was a deep, volcanic red. No stars, except one. But it wasn't a star, it was moving too fast.

"The Silo." Rimmer pointed. The bright spot blurred and danced a bit on the horizon. An effect of the voxels? Rimmer took another sip. It was the first good drunk he'd managed since he ended up on Tween. Or, maybe ever? He didn't know for sure.

Ace nodded. "Destiny," he added, bringing his glass up for a salute.

"They're coming for me." Rimmer thought of Nirvana. Then Dave. There never was enough time. At least not for the things _he_ wanted. Years killing Agnoids, but only hours with Nirvana. Hours with Dave.

"I'm counting on it," Ace replied. He leaned over Rimmer to reach his shot glass.

"I hated you. I remember that." Rimmer said, Ace stopped in mid pour, still leaning over Rimmer. "Why did I hate you?"

"Because I was everything you weren't." Ace explained.

"Really?" Rimmer blinked at him. "You don't seem that intimidating."

"You were a different person." Ace rocked back on his heels. "I guess you've learned to fight since then."

"To fight," Rimmer repeated. "I've never managed to get any closer to what I want, fighting." He looked up at Ace. "You killed her because she asked?"

"She'd given up hope. She was waiting for someone, you see? But they never came back."

"I couldn't remember. If it was me or not—" _If you'd come back_… Rimmer grimaced, pressing a hand to his face. "Oh, smeg." He felt his eyes burn. But he couldn't cry.

"Don't blame yourself." Ace offered. "She had days left at best." He patted Rimmer's shoulder.

Rimmer caught his hand. "Don't bother."

"Not sentimental?"

"I want to know how I get my life back."

Ace smiled ruefully. "There's a bit of a story there… you see, _I_ produce a certain type of voxel."

"You produce…? What?"

"Yes. I was seeded by voxel-Ts. The voxel-T was created by the same man that made that—" Ace nodded towards the oil derrick.

"That means nothing to me."

"A voxel-T has two characteristic traits. The first is its ability to regenerate voxels from raw materials—cutting out the Omega middle man. The second is an emergent property of that regeneration." Ace clapped his hands together. "It can heal damage regular voxels can't. It can combat the effects of the fear-vaccine. At least in holograms."

"Is that what will—"

"Oh, yes." Ace nodded. "It'll re-etch those neural pathways in your brain. Give you a new lease on lif—er—death." He picked up the bottle of raw voxels and poured himself another shot. "Because of the voxel-Ts I'm tougher then the average voxel hologram. If I wasn't the first few hired guns would've got me. As it is, he—_they_ had to be more clever this time round. My only problem is attrition." Ace tipped his shot glass up. "I can regenerate voxels from trace elements. But I have to find those elements."

"That should be easy, standard voxels—"

Ace shook his head. "Not so, old bean. My system is reverse compatible. That means if I introduce older voxels, I'll just re-use them without breaking them down." He brought his knees up, laying his forearms against them. "After two hundred years I think I'm about 5 percent voxel-T now. Mostly nerve cells and non-somatic systems. Enough to keep the fear vaccine from taking over totally. The more I drink —" He glanced at the bottle of raw voxels, "The closer I come to madness. But if I don't drink, I die." The rueful grin was back. "It's good to have choices."

"This is all very tragic." Rimmer dismissed Ace's confession with a wave. "But it doesn't get me anywhere. How do the voxels in _you_ help me?"

Ace leaned back, sipping his shot glass. "Give it a guess. Go on."

"I suppose you've got a stash of voxel-Ts somewhere?"

Ace shook his head, "I would have used them up if I did." His grin turned a bit leering.

"You can synthesize them in a lab?"

"Nope."

Rimmer grimaced. "I have to eat a part of you?"

"Close."

Realization slid over Rimmer's skin like a cold draft. "You mean—"

"That, exactly."

Rimmer sighed, "And you say I'll be able to remember?" _Remember Nirvana._

"Of course." Ace grinned at him over his glass. "You're taking this well."

Rimmer dug in the dirt with a flat bit of rock. He yanked out a clod. "I was more worried that I'd have to eat your toenail clippings." He stopped to eye Ace. "Besides, you _are_ me. That's not so bad."

"You really have changed. The old Arn would have screamed himself unconscious at the thought."

"Do you screw all the Unionists?"

"Some."

"Nirvana?"

Ace hesitated. "No."

Taking a final swallow from his glass, Rimmer climbed to his feet. "Could you open a vein? Just a thought."

"My blood has only trace amounts of voxel-Ts. You could eat a bit of my brain, I suppose, or—"

"No. That's even more disgusting."

(ooo)

Rimmer sat on Ace's thin, lumpy bed. He started to unlace a boot. He stopped half-way through and closed his eyes.

"Hey." Ace said. "You don't need to go through this."

"Yes I do." Rimmer replied. "I need to know if I was the one she was waiting for." He felt Ace sit beside him.

"You really cared for her?"

"I don't know. Yes. Maybe."

"Isn't that answer enough?"

"No. I need to _remember_. Maybe she just reminded me of someone else. I don't know for sure. I need to know."

"You'll be getting back more then you bargained for."

Rimmer glanced at Ace, who was looking back at him without that edge of smug arrogance he'd had the entire time they'd been talking. He looked_sympathetic_. Nirvana had been sympathetic. Rimmer swallowed the lump in his throat. "This is something I have to do to get her back."

Ace stared at him, then he slapped his thighs and started to stand. "Look. I'm joking. It was all just a jape. I've got an ampoule of T-voxels—"

Rimmer caught his arm before he could leave. He looked up at Ace. "I know myself _now_. In a way. It'll be like waking from a dream and being a different person. I'll die… in a way."

Ace looked away from Rimmer's gaze, staring at the ground.

"It's less painful if it's part of a process. Can you understand that?"

"Yes." Still staring at the ground, Ace nodded. "Comfort."

Rimmer wanted to deny the truth of the word. It was absurd, deriving comfort from a man he'd obviously hated when he was his Other Self in his Other Life. But he couldn't face dying alone and Ace was all he had.

"There'll still be a bit of you left, you know—"

Rimmer kissed him. Not quite on the lips, more like the jaw. He thought of Nirvana and Dave slipped through the cracks. Dave and the smell of burnt camphor wood. Dave and sadness. Dave and no sympathy at all.

Ace pulled off his black robe, keeping skin-to-skin contact as he did. Rimmer realized, looking at him in the dim light thrown off by the proximity lamps, that he was bigger, _all_ over. A stab of jealousy broke his concentration. How was that possible? They were the same person.

"Not exactly." Ace replied, as if reading his thoughts. "I was raised on Gnostitarian IO. Different from Hopist. Gnostitarians don't perform certain forms of non-consensual genital surgery on infants."

Rimmer's perspective contracted. He was paralyzed by humiliation, again and endlessly. "I'm not—"

"That's not what I meant." Ace shrugged. "Look. How you differ from me… it's not your fault. It never was." He caught Rimmer's neck, pulling him forward till their foreheads touched. "I'm the same sad sack. I just shoot a little straighter."


	19. Company Hologram

Red Dwarf Fanfic: Last Humans

Chapter 17: Company Hologram

Summary(flashback): Wherein Rimmer-as-Ace decides to return to Red Dwarf in order to save the universe, bringing the dear reader full circle back to the beginning of the novel. But it doesn't end here, this is just the half way point! Whew.

Warnings: Language, sexual situations, slash, violence

Beta: Rack

Chapter Rating: M(16+)

(ooo)

Company Hologram

(ooo)

In a dream, Rimmer remembered what he had forgotten. He and Lister had crash-landed on an icy moon. To keep Lister alive, they'd had to burn their mementos, the things that gave them a link to their pasts. It had come down to Rimmer's camphor-wood chest—one of the two things his father had ever given him—his toy soldiers—the second of the two things his father had given him—and Lister's guitar. Rimmer believed, for a few hours, that Lister had sacrificed his guitar to save Rimmer's chest. He'd been amazed, astounded. He'd been so happy to have _someone_ care that much for him, ecstatic even, he'd thrown his toy soldiers into the fire. Then Lister brought out his untouched guitar and Rimmer'd found the guitar-shaped hole in the back of his camphor-wood chest.

It wasn't the last time he got suckered in by Lister. Or the first. But he kept believing, like a brain-damaged puppy, lapping up the shite every time Lister ladled it out.

And Nirvana.

It_had_ been him she was waiting for. He'd sacrificed his own future—respect, responsibility and an effective physical presence aboard a soft-light holoship—to save her life. It had been him, and she died not even knowing.

Pain pulled Rimmer out of his memories. He woke glued to Ace.

Rimmer sat up, unbelieving. How had he—? _Why_ had he? He jumped out of bed, screaming.

Ace jerked awake.

"You smegging fairy bastard—you seduced—" Rimmer hid himself in-between bouts of pointing at Ace accusingly.

"I see you're awake," Ace replied, turning over to fish out a pack of cheroots from his drawer.

"I can't believe I would—" Rimmer shivered, working his casual desire at the thought of what they—they had done—into a towering, visceral disgust. "It's filthy. _Grotesque._ With _you_." Rimmer started sputtering.

"You didn't think so last night." Ace muttered around his lit cheroot. "It's good to see you back, Arn. You sad-sack bastard."

Rimmer huffed. He twitched and spasmed. And when he'd worked out his feelings of horror, he sat down at the foot of the bed and waved for a cheroot.

"All those Hoppist morals come flooding back?" Ace replied, offering him a smoke and a light.

Rimmer didn't answer. He puffed unevenly on his cheeroot, holding it at an awkward angle. "I'm not Hoppist."

"But you still think it's disgusting." Ace sat up.

"Well. It's you." Rimmer replied, but there wasn't much strength to it. "Thanks." He muttered under his breath.

"You're welcome."

"This is _me_? This humiliated, beaten, self-loathing coward?"

Ace grinned. "It gets better."

"And Dave Lister? A smeggy space hippy who treated me like garbage. Lister. _Lister_." The name slid from between his lips like a gob of mucus. "Why _him_?"

"He has his charms." Ace's cheroot hung haphazard from his lips. "I'm sure you gave as good as you got. From what I remember of our first meeting I found you impossible to be around. Maybe now you can understand why."

Rimmer lunged up. "You smug, self-serving—"

"Ah! Easy there, Soldier." Ace held up his hand. "Yes. We're both a bit much at times. You and me. But you and me, we're not the issue. You and _him_—" Ace plucked the cheroot from his mouth and gestured toward Rimmer, "Aye, there's the rub."

"What_rub_?" Rimmer crossed his arms over his chest and glared down his flaring nose at Ace. "There isn't any rub. Or rubbing for that matter."

"Good ol' Arn, always ready with the denial."

Rimmer's arms dropped. "Look. I really _like_ Dave Lister. At least the one onboard the Silo. But that _other_ one. He's the reason I left Red Dwarf in the first place. He treated me like smeg."

"You treated him like smeg."

Rimmer didn't respond.

"When we first met, you acted every inch the jealous, jilted woman. Just because I got on with—" Ace's grin amplified. "—Skipper."

"His name is Lister."

"There. Right there. Do you see that?" Ace flicked ash from his cheroot. "You're jealous."

"I'm not—"

"Space-queer?"

That silenced Rimmer. It'd been one of the scathing insults leveled at him as a child. The worst thing _ever_. Made so crazy by life wedged into a little tin can—one loose bolt from being squished flat—that you started to look at your mates in _that_ way. Rimmer leaned his head into his hands. "You betrayed me."

"What?" Ace asked.

"A long time ago. When all this started. You betrayed me to the Omegas."

"No. I didn't. That was an imposter. Pretending to be me."

"You were shot."

"I told you, that wasn't me. It was an imposter." Ace tipped his ash into a tin can. "I never worked for the Omegas."

Rimmer glanced at him. "You're lying."

Ace hopped out of bed.

"Gah!" Rimmer shielded his eyes from the sight of Ace nude.

"Pot? Kettle? Black?" Ace nodded at Rimmer's own lack of clothes.

Rimmer scrambled to find his pants.

"Want some coffee?" Ace turned his coffee machine on. It gasped and burped, spewing out a stream of thick liquid.

Rimmer buckled his belt and sat down at Ace's table. "Yes." He couldn't look the man in the eye.

"Big day ahead of us." Ace said. "You're going to your rendezvous and I'm going to infiltrate the Silo."

"Rendezvous?" Rimmer sipped his coffee. "Back to the crazies." _Back to Lister._

"Among other things."

Rimmer set his cup down. "_What_ other things?"

"I have some tasks for you too, Soldier." Ace replied. "And I've given you the gumption to do them, too."

"Explain."

"I gave a bit more then you bargained for. A bit more of me, actually."

"What?"

"You won't be able to do what you need to do if you don't have a little bit of Ace in you." Ace chuckled. "You got over your shock a lot quicker then I'd expect of _Rimmer_."

"You son of a bitch." Rimmer grinned. "I should kill you."

Ace grinned back at him. "But you won't because you know I must have had good reason."

(ooo)

"Who's that?" Rimmer asked as he crouched on the ion shield of a vintage space-to-surface transport.

Ace lifted the struggling, grunting naked man by his bound arms. The man was sandy-haired and non-descript, like an endless string of school councilors Rimmer recalled from his childhood.

"This is ranking comrade Nelsen. My second in command and an O-G spy."

Nelsen choked. Ace dropped him, pulled out a cheroot and lit it. "The O-G Leader likes to keep track of little old me."

"Why don't they just kill you if you're so much trouble?"

Ace grinned around his smoke. "Maybe they think I'm dead." Ace squatted down beside Nelsen, who had managed to flip over onto his stomach and worm a few feet towards freedom. "So, bucko, poetic justice it is then?" Ace slid his hand under his black poncho and brought out an enigmatic machine—a overlarge segmented needle in a clear plastic shaft.

Rimmer watched Ace fiddle then glance up at the fierce sky. "Some electro-magnetic interference." He pressed a segment, flicked his finger against another then shoved the thing into the small of Nelsen's back. It burrowed in; voxel flesh sealing seamlessly over the entry wound. The spy arched his back and screamed. The sound came through the gag as a long, thin squeak.

Nelsen's skin began to blister and weep yellow lymph. Then it fell away in curling sheets. Nelsen stared at his exposed—now bronzed and wiry—arms in terror. Then his face split open like a splintered coconut.

Underneath was Ace's terror-stricken mug.

"What the smeg? That's impossible!" Rimmer turned from the former Nelsen—curled and weeping silently in a pile of cast-off fragments—to the current Ace. They looked identical. "What did you do?"

"Another little gadget developed by my friend. The voxel morph." Ace puffed on his cheroot, smug. "Nelsen's taking my place now."

"But the rest of the Union—"

"They already think I'm starkers, Soldier. _You _come back with a version of me that insists he's Nelsen and Nelsen is me… well, I don't think the Unionists will have a problem believing I've just lost my last toehold on reality."

"What about you?"

"I'll come back with you. As _him_." Ace leaned over Nelsen. "Best you not hear the rest of this." He slammed his fist against the voxel morph in Nelsen's spine. Nelsen retched and fell into the dirt, twitching.

Ace turned back to Rimmer. "He's the one who told me you're being recalled. You're getting your replacement, Soldier. A new Rimmer from a new dimension. But I've my own plan."

Rimmer shifted on his perch. "What? To be the master of ceremonies aboard the S.S. Out Loud and Proud?"

"Ha. Ha. Cute." Ace grinned. "I'm going to do the double-agent thing and infiltrate the O-G hierarchy. I'll go right to the source and free the space-ranking company holograms."

"By screwing them?"

"One must make sacrifices for the good of the universe." Ace's lopsided leer made Rimmer queasy.

"What happens to me?"

"Your ability to heal your mind won't last long, Soldier. A few months. Then you'll start to scrap out again and the deterioration will be faster."

"So I gained nothing from this—"

"Not so. You gained yourself back. You got a bit of me. You'll find that useful, I'm sure. And you also have the ability to turn soft light and step out of your voxel body. You can stay a hard light projection for a few more days before the deterioration catches up again. Lucky for you the hard light system is violently literal—your projection circuits will deteriorate, but not your memory bank or your personality algorithm. I need those things need to stay coherent."

"So I'm expendable." Rimmer's fist clenched over the handle of his jaw-knife.

"You're going to save Dave."

"He's in trouble?" Rimmer jumped down from the transport shield. After a second's panic he caught himself up. "Why should I bother?" He knew the pang he felt was answer enough. _Smegging poof_.

Ace waved away the question, as if it was irrelevant or already decided. Rimmer grit his teeth in irritation and Ace ignored that as well. "You have to find Red Dwarf."

"How am I going to do that, it's been lost for centuries! Besides, Lister's on the Starbug."

"Not important. You've got to take the Wildfire and find it."

"The Wildfire? That bitch computer of yours betrayed me!"

Ace pulled out his pack of cheroots. He unwound the foil from inside and handed it to Rimmer. "Here. Coordinates and an interrupt-command. Use the command to control the Wildfire."

"How?"

"Like I said, she was mine originally. And in her kernel is an interrupt that overrides any program, including the O-G hack. Use it and she'll obey you. She won't like it but she will." Ace took a drag on his cheroot. "The coordinates aren't exact. I'm going to have to trust you to do some detective work, Soldier. I know where Red Dwarf materialized, but not where it is now."

"Materialized? What? It was stolen."

Ace glanced at the unconscious Nelsen and grimaced. "Long story. No time. Trust me. Red Dwarf has _rematerialized_ and you've got to find it."

"And how am I supposed to do that?"

"Like I said, use your noodle. You know where it was and you know its average speed, plus you know that Hollister will probably want to—"

"Wait. What? Hollister? He's dead!"

"Red Dwarf has been rematerialized _along_ with her original crew, or something like it. Look, I can't explain _everything_." Ace waved his hand.

"You can't explain everything." Rimmer mimicked. "All this is nonsense. I never said I would help you."

"You don't have to." Ace glared. "Shut up and listen. Make the decision to save him later." He glanced up at the sky again. "Red Dwarf has re-materialized with its original crew. You have the coordinates of where, exactly, it rematerialized. You need to go to that place and think like Hollister. Most likely he'll try to find clues so he'll be drawn to near-by planets. Can't be that many within one year range of Small and Scarlet's re-materialization point…"

"There could be thousands of—"

"Hundreds of thousands, Soldier."

"So how do I?"

"Deduction. Process of elimination. Hunches. You work it out. You're not so incompetent now." Ace dropped his cheroot and ground it under his boot heel. "Once you get to the Wee and Rouge One you'll have to bargain with Hollister to get access to your _resurrected_ self. Find a bargaining chip. Most likely something that makes the bloated bastard think he can get back to Sol for his _Europa_ drop. Look for StarTransit™ Hubs, there's a bunch of them strewn all over the galaxy. The Wildfire's PIE engine and a StarTransit™ Hub should be enough to move that huge lump of red metal—"

"Where am I supposed to take it?"

Ace hesitated. "Anywhere the Silo isn't. Once you do that, you'll have to convince _your_ old self to accept your personality algorithm as a patch."

"Why?"

"Because you've got the right stuff." Ace winked at Rimmer. "And it's best the right stuff stay alive."

Rimmer gagged. "So I'm just a courier?" Rimmer unholstered his shotgun and slammed the butt of it into the ground. "I should kill you and go back to the desert."

"To die?" Ace laughed. "At least this way you have a chance of living on. If nothing else, let your cowardice guide you."

Rimmer crouched beside his gun. He stared at the cracking dirt beneath his feet. "Smeg." He looked up at Ace. "You planned this, didn't you?"

"I figured one day those bastards that _impersonated_ me would end up back in this dimension to find an Ace replacement. And they'd find you. And somehow you'd find me. I did a lot of things to help that along." Ace crossed his arms and stared out into the desert, radiating smug. "Sometimes you wish and the universe throws the plan together. And sometimes you do it over and over again till you get it right."

(ooo)

Ace slipped into his black robes, heading out through the canyon back to Company City, pushing Nelsen in a wheelbarrow. Rimmer followed behind till he felt eyes on him and stopped.

Old man bulb had woken.

"What do you want?" Rimmer glared.

"I know who you are," old man bulb said. "You're another version of me."

Rimmer squinted up at the sun, then back towards Ace. "I don't have time for this—"

Old Man Bulb nodded at Ace's retreating back. "Ace told me to find you and bring you back. I forgot. But I remember now. He said you would save _him_."

"Save who?"

"Lister."

Rimmer eyed Old Man Bulb. He supposed there was a resemblance, although Bulb was fuzzy, indistinct and translucent. A ghost of sorts.

Old Man Bulb's projection started to fizz. "We were useless to them so they scrapped us."

"How long have you been wandering around?"

"Some of us, millions of years."

"How many are there of you?"

"Tens of thousands. Thousands searching for you."

"Why so many?"

"Keeping tens of thousands of generations of Listers sane." Old Man Bulb looked at him with empty eyes. "Don't run away."

"Why would I run from _you_?"

"Don't run away. I did." Old man bulb's projection failed. He blinked on and off a few times. His bee hit the dirt.

Rimmer stepped over him and jogged a pace, thinking to catch up with Ace.

He paused, turned, and looked at the bee, glinting in the light.

"Smeg." He said and walked back to pick it up.

(ooo)

Ace edged around a house-GELF wall, watching the bustling Company town market-place through the gap between houses. Simulants clustered in the far end, most arguing over bits of scrap. Voxel holograms wandered the rest of the stalls, looking over pieces of voxel equipment. Some of it morphing, such as the toilet-settee, others reconstituted antiques made of voxel wood, metal and fiber. Cat-GELFs hawked _themselves_, as body-guards for hairy orangumatt-GELFs or, more successfully, prostitutes.

Watching it made Rimmer feel apathetic. It was the last market-place the universe would ever know. All of the creatures in it were the final bits of distrust living in the warmth given off by the universe's slow putrefaction.

There had been no point to it, any of it, really.

Rimmer chewed on that thought while Ace scanned the crowd.

After a moment, Ace stepped back, pulling back the cowl of his robe. "See that?" Ace pointed to two Company Simulants standing off to the side.

Rimmer nodded.

"That's my pick-up. Well, Nelsen's. He was ordered to retrieve you."

"How do you know?"

Ace shrugged. "Its all very familiar."

Rimmer frowned at his cryptic answer but pressed on. "Why did they strand me, if I'm so valuable?"

"Valuable?" Ace looked at him. "Well, I suppose. They always have me for back-up—"

"But you said—"

"I lied." Ace bowed his head, pressing his temple against the shivering flank of the house-GELF. He glanced back up. "This isn't the time."

"You're extra equipment, huh?" Rimmer wanted to offer up an insult. Bring the man down a few self-righteous pegs. But he couldn't get past the feeling of companionable _understanding_. He gagged a bit.

"Over there—" Ace pointed to a short, unassuming man examining GELF-jackbeetle husks a few strides away from the company Agnoids. "—is a Unionist operative. We need to get Nelsen to him."

"Why the same place?"

"Because the Union likes to keep track of company pick-ups."

"Why don't we drop off Nelsen somewhere else?"

"Efficiency." Ace reached for Rimmer's cowl. Rimmer batted his hand away and arranged it himself, hiding his face.

"Just trying to help, love." Ace grinned.

Rimmer frowned.

Ace grabbed up the handlebars of the wheelbarrow and passed them to Rimmer. "Go to it. Tell 'em Nelsen's gonna infiltrate the Silo."

The unconscious and bound Nelsen—who looked like Ace—lay in the bed of the wheelbarrow. Rimmer checked the way then wheeled into the market place, meandering through the stalls like a customer. No one seemed to question the presence of a bound, gagged and naked man unconscious in his wheelbarrow.

Rimmer stopped at the antique stall to look at a clock, then a wood chest—the sight of which filled him with fury towards Lister. He moved on, pausing here and there, making his way to the Unionist, careful to seem nonchalant. A passing knot of orangu-matts moved in front of Rimmer like a furry wall with a sulphurous stink. Rimmer ducked back and waited till they'd moved on.

When they had he 'accidentally' bumped into the Unionist, who looked up at him through horn-rimmed glasses. Rimmer tipped the wheelbarrow towards the Unionist, allowing him to catch sight of the contents.

The Unionist nodded, then shrugged towards an empty stall on the other side of the market. The stall's curtain was drawn shut. The Unionist inspected another iridescent pink jack-beetle husk, flicked a token at the vendor and turned with his husk find towards the empty stall.

Rimmer followed him. The Unionist lifted the curtain, checked to see if the Company Simulants were watching and gestured for Rimmer to duck inside.

Six Unionists blinked in the sudden light. One was cleaning a gun, the other two were checking their EMP rounds and the final three were playing cards. The first Unionist nodded to his fellows.

Rimmer showed them the contents of his wheelbarrow. "He's gone mad."

They all nodded with sage understanding.

"Nelsen's infiltrating the Silo." Rimmer added.

A hesitation then another nod.

"Will you kill him?" Rimmer asked.

The first Unionist shrugged. "We'll ask our ranking comrade. Thank you for your assistance in this matter. If you ever require our help, we will be happy to provide it."

"Yes. No doubt." Rimmer nodded. "Well… shall I?"

The first Unionist waved to the entrance. Rimmer bowed and left their enclave.

As he walked away from the Unionist tent, he noticed a figure meandering towards him. When the figure dropped it's cowl he was startled to see Nelsen.

Then he remembered.

Ace grinned with Nelsen's thin lipped mouth. "Let's get ourselves aboard."

(ooo)

Lister leaned into the hot spray from the showerhead, head bowed. The water drummed against his forhead. He felt unhinged. Drained and terrified in a way he couldn't pin down. Everything seemed to be slipping away, and yet everything was exactly the same.

He was on the Red Dwarf, just two weeks out of the stasis booth. Under house arrest for continuing to refuse to help capture his cat, who'd now been free for months on the cargo bays.

He knew that, but couldn't shake the feeling that there was something he was missing. Maybe it was the oddness of being in some sort of_something_ with Arn.

Lister grinned. _Arn_. Strange how quickly things could change.

Lister pressed the off button on the shower and stepped out, toweling himself. He started on his plaits and his house arrest bracelet clunked against his head.

"Ouch!" He rubbed his temple then noticed Arn had come in and was staring at him. "Oh, hi. Didn't see you come in." He smiled and dropped the towel on the floor.

Arn flinched, his eyes darting to the towel.

Lister took that moment to throw his arms around his… bunkmate? Friend? Lover? He grinned into Arn's shoulder.

Arn stiffened.

Lister looked up at him. "What's wrong?"

"I… can't explain."

"Yeh look like…" Well, not smeg, exactly. Lister eyed him. How Arn had managed to change so drastically in the eight hours since Lister had seen him last was a mystery. But change he had. He'd gotten tan. In deep space no less! And he seemed defeated, harder too. Like the softness in him had been baked solid. "What happened?"

"You wouldn't believe me."

"Try me."

"I'm… not your Rimmer. I'm another version of him. And you're not my Lister. You're another version of you. You're not even on the Red Dwarf… Look, this is too much and there's no point." Arn turned away from him.

Lister chewed over what he'd said. Some part of him knew it resonated, a bigger part thought Arn'd lost his marbles. "If yer right, that is… hypothetically, where am I?"

"You're on a ship called the Silo. You're a hologrammatic copy of yourself. The real you has been dead for three million years. A bunch of… insane people called the Omega Group have been using you to force me to do… evil things." Arn trailed off.

"Wow." Lister said. "How is that possible? Yeh'd think I'd remember some a' that. Besides, I can touch." Lister demonstrated by grabbing Arn's shoulder.

"You're a voxel hologram. It's… well it's hard to explain, it means you pretty much can do everything you used to do when you were alive. I think the Omega Group has altered your personality algorithm so you can't form new memories."

Lister smiled weakly. "So I'm always relivin' the same day. I mean,_hypothetically_."

"Yes, sort of. "

"So what happens?"

"We spend a day together and then you forget it ever happened. You forget everything I say. And the Omegas threaten me with turning you off and I do whatever they want."

"But if I was turned off, would I even know?"

"_I'd_ know." Arn sat down on his bunk.

Lister joined him. "All we have is this moment?"

Arn nodded, and stared at his clasped hands.

"Then we should get to it." Lister shifted closer to Arn.

"Get to what?"

"Makin' the best of it." Lister said against the skin between Arn's cheek and his ear.

Arn exploded away from him. "Haven't you heard a thing I've said?"

Lister winced. "It's a bit hard to believe, yeah?"

"It's true. It's all true."

"Well if it is, then let's escape."

"I can't escape with you." Arn turned away.

Lister watched him. This was a new Arn. An Arn he'd never met before. He knew there was more to his sullen, bitter, weevily bunk-mate… but this seemed beyond the simple getting-to-know-the-real-person he'd experienced in _other_ relationships. "Why not?"

"Because you're not my Dave," Arn replied.

"Ah," Lister answered, his brow drawn. A queasy sort of pain squeezed his throat. He coughed, turned it into a laugh and tried to lighten the mood, "Is this some sort of test? Yeh know, a moral quandary, yeah? If you had to choose between cutting off yer mum's hand or blindin' your second cousin, that sort of thing?"

Arn rubbed his hands across his eyes. "Right. Yes. That's exactly what it is." He squeezed his fingers together till the knuckles went white. "So what would you do if you had two copies of a person you… liked… and you could only save one of them? Which one would you pick?"

"Hrm." Lister stood. "The one that fell in love with you."

Arn's shoulders sagged. "Alright."

Lister hugged Arn from behind. "Sorry."

Arn turned and looked at Lister, confused. "What?"

Lister shrugged. "Doesn't matter." He grinned. "This is the strangest way you've tried to talk out yourself out of sex yet." Lister's grin softened. "I think I know you, and then you go and sprout another layer of goited weirdness."

(ooo)

They came for him in the morning. He didn't even try to wake Lister. The man was dead to the world.

Rimmer walked the halls of the Silo in silence. The guards took him to the same room with a different accountant.

"You know your task. The Wildfire has been programmed with coordinates to the next suitable dimension. Do you accept the terms?" said the new accountant, a fat man in a ridiculous toupee.

Rimmer had nodded and the guards had led him back to the hanger he'd first docked with, years before.

The Wildfire sat in the launch bay. Silent. Rimmer's lip curled. He hated that damn thing, with its breathy voice and its feminine wiles.

The guards stopped at the base of the ramp into the Wildfire's belly. Rimmer stepped onto the Wildfire and hoped he hadn't screwed up memorizing the code Ace had given him.

He slipped into the cockpit and the command chair.

"Hello, Ace," the Wildfire said.

"Hello you two-faced bitch." Rimmer replied. "Take us out."

"Yes, Ace," she answered, unruffled.

The Wildfire taxied into position. The engines revved. Then gravity pressed Rimmer flat. He gasped and spat, trying to breath under the two-ton elephant sitting on his chest. His vision grayed and speckled with perverse after-images.

The Wildfire lurched into an abrupt turn and Rimmer's head smacked against the cockpit frame. Around him stars danced on an axel. "What—" Rimmer grunted.

"Oh, sorry, Ace! My gears are a little sticky. I've been grounded so long!"

Rimmer could detect a faint note of smugness in her voice. "You did that on purpose, you tin hussy."

She didn't reply, her silence somehow more metallic then before. Rimmer watched the digital readout on the dash. Fifteen minutes from dimension launch. He waited a few minutes, waiting for the throbbing headache he'd gotten from the excessive Gs to ease.

"How far are we from the Silo?"

"10,000 kilometers."

"What's the com range?"

"We may not have enough signal to penetrate the atmosphere of Tween—"

"Perfect." Rimmer eyed the dash. On the right, two panels down, blue with an "A" pressed into the metal. _Right._

He flicked out his knife—the regular one, his Jaw knife'd been confiscated—and started unscrewing the screws holding the panel shut.

"Ace? What are you doing?"

Rimmer rolled his eyes and put his fist through her optical sensor. He pulled back his hand and picked the glass out of his fingers.

"What have you done? I'm sending off a—"

He slipped the panel open and sliced the wires. "There."

"Ace, why did you—"

"Computer. Recognize code. The quick fox leaps over the lazy dog." He recited the long alpha-numeric string Ace had given him.

The Wildfire was silent. This time the silence was empty of any tension. After a moment she spoke again. Her voice was simple and toneless. "We are at appropriate distance from the Silo to engage the dimension jump. Please instruct."

Rimmer bowed his head. His stomach churned. He gripped the arm rests of his chair. They became slick and he dug his fingers in till the metal warped.

"We are at appropriate distance from the Silo to engage the dimension jump. Please instruct."

_The one who fell in love with you._ Rimmer's body shook from the tension. The abused sheet metal under his fingers groaned. "As if that smegging space scum cares two fossilized curry stains about me."

Rimmer thought of that strange, mournful Lister on-board the Silo. The one who'd _actually_ shown he cared. The one he should be risking his skin for, by rights. Isn't that right? For love, like those romantic claptrap stories Lister'd always tortured Rimmer with?

It was so hard to let go of everything _his_ Lister had said and done—Rimmer remembered it all in one swift jab. It stayed stuck in his throat like a lump.

_That_ was the man he was supposed to love? Ace must be daft!

"We are at appropriate distance from the Silo to engage the dimension jump. Ple—"

"Smegging shut up!" Metal squealed as Rimmer liberated the top part of his armrests from the bottom.

The computer went silent.

_If nothing else, let your cowardice guide you_.

He turned to the PIE patch in the cockpit. He started to toggle the binary settings to a pattern he remembered in a vague, smug memory. He understood a lot more now. Things about quantum entanglement, astro-navigation, dimensional travel, electronics, binary logic, electro-magnetic spectrums… things he'd never come close to understanding before.

"We're not going to leave this dimension. We're doing a heel-toe jump to some other point in it."


	20. Invasion

Red Dwarf Fanfic: Last Humans

Chapter 18: Invasion

Summary: Wherein Kryten figures it out, Rimmer is useful and the Red Dwarf jumps from the proverbial frying pan into the proverbial fire.

Warnings: Language

Beta: Rack

Chapter Rating: T(PG-13)

(ooo)

Invasion

(ooo)

//Ship Serial No: Red Dwarf JMC66350

//Ship's Time: 02:47-06.13-002.343

//AI-Holly-Executive: ROGUE SKUTTER ACTIVITY CONFIRMED

//AI-Holly-Executive: INITIATING CONTAINMENT PROTOCOL: 'FRY THE LITTLE BUGGERS'

//AI-Holly-Executive: ESTIMATED TIME OF COMPLETION: 00.04:01.36

"We have to speak with Mister Todhunter, ma'am." Kryten ushered Kochanski towards one of the medical bay's offices.

Inside the small room Todhunter was eating a sandwich with his left hand, spilling quite a bit of it.

"Kris." Todhunter smiled. "I dialed one up for you." He pointed to a second plate. "Open-face, just like you like it."

"How'd you know?" Kochanski slipped next to him, craning a bit to meet his eyes.

"A guess." He radiated a gentle, soothing energy towards her—not passionate—that Kochanski couldn't place.

Kochanski bit her lip as she turned to her open-faced sandwich. For some reason she thought of her father. Not her real father, she hadn't met him—he'd died before she graduated to real life—but he'd been replaced by a perfectly wonderful simulation father in the virtual environment she'd grown up in. Unfortunately, Kochanski had found the_chafe_ between reality and virtual perfection unsettling. Even if she didn't hate her parents—thanks to her perfect simulated upbringing—she lived with the grating suspicion she had completely missed out on having _her_ parents, flaws and all. A suspicion that became unbearable when her real mother died.

"Thanks," she replied, then nodded to his bandaged arm. "What happened?"

"Firefight." Todhunter replied and glanced at Kryten. "I hear you have bad news."

"Indeed. I'm certain the Omega Group knows where we are, sir. We have to get as far away as possible."

Todhunter chewed a bite of sandwich, contemplating. "Did you bring the original Red Dwarf's Holly?"

Kryten handed Holly's wrist mounted screen over to Todhunter. Todhunter keyed Holly up on the screen behind the desk.

"Hi, dudes. That was a lot of excitement."

"It's not over yet." Todhunter cautioned, taking another bite of his sandwich. Kochanski eyed her own—a skinless chicken breast on Ezekiel bread—and her nerves gave a bit of a twinge.

Todhunter looked over at her. "Try to eat, Kris." He said. "Sit down at the desk, that'll help."

Kochanski sat and stared at her sandwich. She tried a bite. It was bland and inoffensive. She chewed and stared at Todhunter's broad back, feeling more and more certain that Arnold was wrong.

"Can you call up this OG-AI you told me about, Kryten?" Todhunter fiddled with the screen's input keys.

Kryten entered the code sequence and Holly's bland face was replaced by the OG-AI's sullen, mussed mug. "Oh, it's _you_ again. What do you want?"

Todhunter stepped forward between Kryten and the screen. "I understand we need a Perpetual Inertia Engine to interface with the StarTransit™. How do we construct one?"

"A_PIE_? With _your_ technology?" OG-AI scoffed. "Fish would have a better chance building a raft out of decorative aquarium rock."

"How about finding one, is there—"

"You people are dense. How'd _Ace_ get here?" The O-G AI flicked her hair, gazing down her nose at them.

"What? Ace Rimmer?" Kochanski gaped.

Kryten turned to Todhunter and Kochanski. "Of course! _The Wildfire._"

"Ding-Ding! We have a winner of the 'not quite as dumb as a bag of hammers' contest." O-G AI winked off.

(ooo)

Kochanski found Dave lying on a couch in the medical bay lounge. A skutter was busy piling an assortment of salty snacks from a shattered vending machine on the coffee table in front of him while he stared at the ceiling.

"Hi." Kochanski said, pulling up a chair and picking up a bag of crisps.

Dave glanced at her. "Hey."

"Todhunter and Kryten are trying to figure out a way to get us far away from here before this Silo thing arrives." Kochanski tugged on the bag, trying to pull it open. It remained stubbornly contained. Dave sat up and took it from her hands, splitting it with a practiced move. He gave it back to her without taking a crisp.

Kochanski looked at him. "What's happening with Arnold?"

Dave shrugged.

Kochanski glanced down the hallway. A skutter was busy cleaning off the spray painted 'Bob rules' _another_ skutter had defaced the wall with. Strange times indeed. "I'm…sorry."

"For what?" Lister asked. Then he realized. "Oh." He shook his head. "Don't be, yeah? I don't really have a right to be upset."

"About Rimmer?" Kochanski asked.

"Yeah." He went silent, lying down again.

"I don't understand what's going on with you… and him."

Dave sighed and rubbed his eyes. "It's… complicated."

"Tell me, please." Kochanski stared at the open bag of crisps in her hand. It seemed such an effort to fish one out.

"I've been havin' these dreams," Dave said.

"Are you talking about the one you had of Arnold on Starbug? I know you didn't tell me everything—"

"Yeah." Dave went quiet. "But also of you, Kris." He looked at her, his eyes sad. "I've been havin' this dream we're married."

Kris closed her eyes and nodded.

"Before I met you, I had a crush on _this_ dimension's Kristen Kochanski. But I never remembered datin' her. Then I had dreams of datin' yeh. And I realized they were memories. Before you arrived, yeah?" Lister swallowed. "I did marry yeh Kris. I remember now."

"You'd think _I'd_ remember," Kris said, peeved.

"I don't know. Maybe it just happened in this universe?"

"But how? Before the accident?"

"Maybe after, yeah?" Lister shrugged. "I assumed a lot of stuff when I got outta stasis. I assumed Holly told me the truth."

"You don't think he did?"

"That O-G AI… it's been part of Holly and I didn't know it. Holly's been… havin' trouble since I got outta stasis. Goin' computer senile, we thought. Maybe that was the O-G AI workin' on him."

"Good point."

"So everything I know bout the past is based on Holly. And who knows how much I can trust what Holly says?"

Kochanski nodded.

"And these memories make it worse. All disjointed. There's more'n one of me all jumbled up inside." He sniffed. "Like Rimmer."

Kochanski sighed, setting aside the opened crisp bag. "Arnold's acting like you two were lovers."

Dave pulled his hair back, looking stricken. "I know. Thing is. I can't say he's _wrong_. That _other_ dream—the one with him—I told yeh about it. At least part."

"Yes. Arnold came back. He'd become Ace. And he was different, you said. More relaxed and accepting—"

"We ended up snoggin'."

Kris held her breath, waiting.

"That dream… it wasn't quite as real as these memories of you and me. It felt… I figured it meant nothing. Now… with him like he is…"

"You think…"

"Yeah." Lister nodded. "But it's the same with you." He looked at her, his eyes imploring. "I don't know which a' yeh is…" He sat up straighter. "You make more sense, Kris. Than _him_."

"Do I?" Kochanski's stomach fluttered. She wasn't sure how to feel. "I like you a lot Dave."

"Yeah?"

"But wouldn't it be _this_ dimension's Kochanski that you've remembered marrying."

"That's the thing, Kris… I remembered yeh both but… she was yer mum."

Kris stared at him, trying to digest what he was saying. She'd never _seen_ this dimension's Kristine Kochanski. And she'd only met her own mum after getting free from that perfect virtual simulation she grew up in. "What did she look like?"

"She was small, yeah? She was brunette. She wasn't that much to look at, but when she smiled," Lister opened his hands. "It lit up a room. She had a great sense of humor. I remember she was learnin' Japanese."

Kochanski paled. "Dave. My mum knew Japanese."

Dave stared at her. Kochanski stared at him.

She continued. "I only got to know her after I turned eighteen. I met up with her in the Tokyo space-port during one of my stop-overs. I ended up being assigned to Red Dwarf after that. She thought it was hilarious because she worked on Red Dwarf. Met Dad on Red Dwarf. We wrote to each other every week. But our schedules never really came together. And then she went missing Captaining a deep-sky ship. That's how my father disappeared too, before I left the simulation. I didn't know him at all." Kochanski's throat constricted. "She told me her and my father put me into that simulation because of the scare that was going around at the time, do you remember?"

Dave shook his head.

"There were a bunch of studies that found families were the source of all adult neurosis. The government was advocating for the use of synthetic, virtual families to raise children. It was all the rage in the middle class at the time. She thought she was doing me a favor, staying as far away from me as a child as she could. Her and dad. Dad died before I could meet him anyway." Kochanski rubbed her eyes. She'd remembered the resentment she felt. Years of it. If she was honest, she still felt it. "I never told her. I _applied_ to work on Red Dwarf because I wanted to… be closer to them." Kochanski bit her lip. "I gave up a job in the Space Corps."

"Erm. You never told me. I didn't know me mum or dad either, growin' up. Now I know why—because I _am_ me own dad—but I didn't then."

"Was it hard?" Kochanski asked. "I mean, growing up after we left you in that bar?"

"Naw." Dave said. "I had me gran and me step-dad." Dave bit his thumb, sniffing. "I'm lyin'. It _was_ hard. Bein' left as a baby in a cardboard box under a pool table. I'd lie awake at night wonderin' what was wrong with me." Tears welled. "I only left me kid-self 'cause I knew I had to. I'd never have been, otherwise. I wouldn't have done it, if I didn't know I was doin' it to meself."

Kochanski offered Dave a tissue. "We had to do it." She said. Her hands shook and she squeezed them between her knees.

"I know." He leaned against her and she slipped an arm around his shoulders.

"We did the right thing." She thought of her mum and dad, trying to protect her by giving her away to a simulation to raise. "The right thing." She repeated, firmly.

"Yeah."

"Go sit with Arnold." Kochanski watched Dave stand. "I think he'd appreciate it."

(ooo)

Kochanski sat on the couch, tracing the geometric pattern in the coffee table top. The snack-hording skutter was sitting quietly beside her with a tissue box clutched in its claw. She hadn't used one yet. She was in that dry, no-man's land of pain one had to trudge through before crying could offer any relief.

Something awkward and metallic jerked to a stop beside her. "Oh, Miss Kochanski!" it wailed.

Kryten. Kochanski looked up to see the mechanoid's angular features contorted in pain. "I heard what you said to Mister Lister, ma'am!" Kryten dabbed at his eyes with a handkerchief. "I never realized your life was so tragic."

"Yes, well…" Kochanski rather wished Kryten would go and leave her to the quiet and unobtrusive company of the skutter and its mound of heavily processed, hydrogenated snack products. Probably plucked and packaged from GELF plants that grew caramel-covered pretzels and chocolate licorice twists for leaves. Kochanski slumped.

"Miss Kochanski, I feel awful. Just awful." Kryten's face reassembled itself into a caricature of guilt. "You may not have noticed, but I've been so jealous of you, ma'am."

Kochanski stared at him. "Kryten, pleasure-GELFs who have been specifically engineered to lack all knowledge of the human emotion known as jealousy would have had no problem recognizing that you were jealous."

"Yes, well, ma'am. I realize now that I was wrong about you. You aren't a cold-hearted Pygmalion who wants to re-work Mister Lister into her image of perfection, just as she tyrannically enforced placing the salad cream in the closet—"

"Kryten…" There was a warning note in her voice.

"You're not a selfish, narcissist who sought to destroy Mister Lister's relationships to everyone but herself—"

"Kryten!"

"You're also not an abusive, controlling harpy of a woman whose taste in clothes could only be described the result of someone letting a lobotomized weasel loose in a pleather factory—"

"_Kryten!"_

"Oh, sorry ma'am. Where was I? Oh, yes. I realize now how… slightly unreasonable I've been to you in the past."

"Slightly unreasonable?" Kochanski snorted. "You tried to blow me up with a panzer."

"I just wanted to apologize. I've seen a side of you, I never realized existed. It's made me rethink my own… tetchiness." Kryten dabbed his eyes again. Kochanski rolled hers at the affectation. "I'm sorry, ma'am."

Kochanski smiled weakly. "Well, thank you Kryten."

"It's just… well, ma'am. People with in-and-out bits just can't know what its like for me. I'll always be second best." Kryten pressed his jelly-plast hands against his chest. "But now I know you can sympathize with me. Like me, you've been cast-off. A virtual orphan. A—"

"Yes, thank you Kryten." Kochanski held up her hand. "How's everything going with the Wildfire?" She didn't fell quite so much like crying. Maybe Kryten had done something good after all.

"Todhunter worked out the specifications and Nigel is helping him with the mechanics. Of course _this_ Red Dwarf's Holly still controls Red Dwarf's engines. But Bob thinks he can create a work-around." Kryten twisted his features into a grin. "Apparently Bob's been working to take over the re-materialized Red Dwarf since… since he came aboard, Miss."

"How long?"

"Just hours, ma'am. Oh." Kryten jiggled. "I almost forgot. Doctor Valley wanted to speak with you."

(ooo)

Kochanski edged into Dr. Valley's office. Worry got the better of her and all she could do was watch the Doctor putter over his screen from his doorway. When it looked like he wasn't going to acknowledge her without action on her part, she cleared her throat.

He glanced up, his eyes magnified through his reading glasses, making him look a bit like a giant, yet blandly inoffensive pink beetle. He pulled them off. "Yes?"

"You told Kryten—"

"Yes." Dr. Valley nodded. "I have good news. Mister Rimmer is doing well. He should be off life support in a few days."

Kochanski let out the breath she'd been holding. "That's great, Doctor, I—"

He held up a hand. "Before you go getting excited—I have bad news, yes?"

She stiffened. "What?"

"Mister Rimmer… is not himself—"

"He's gone Singular, hasn't he?" Kochanski folded her arms over her stomach.

"How could you—"

"I have a minor in quantum-psychiatry."

"Oh." Doctor Valley nodded. "So you knew he was… suffering disruptions, yes? Well, he's not Singular _yet_. But he is red-lining."

"And there isn't anything you can do for him?" She knew there wasn't, but she wanted him to prove her wrong—

"No. And I'm afraid that isn't the worst of it, yes?" The Doctor pressed the tips of his fingers together. "His file was tagged before he came to the medical bay. JMC protocol regarding a red-lining prisoner is very explicit. If Mister Rimmer is capable of living off life support the medical bay's main processor—the computer that controls all the automated system—will terminate him. It's a catch-22, yes?"

Kochanski pointed to his screen. "Then override protocol! He shouldn't hurt anyone if he's sedated—"

"I'm afraid it doesn't work like that. The Singular tag is a Command-level tag, yes? Only a direct order by the Captain, issued through Holly, could override it."

"So you're saying the computer that's saving his life right now is going to kill him as soon as he can live without it."

Doctor Valley splayed his fingers over his desk, his head bobbing like a buoy.

"How many days?"

"Until he can live on his own? Two or three, yes?"

"And it won't listen to Todhunter?"

"It recognizes the Captain and Holly, yes? No-one else." Doctor Valley shrugged. "I would not be overly concerned, Miz Kochanski. His personality has been recently archived—"

"What?" Kochanski tensed. "What the smeg did you just say?"

"His personality algorithm—"

"Gah!" She threw her hands up. "Of all the insensitive things to—" She slammed her hands down on his desk. "He's not a piece of hardware! His body's not a smegging disposable cup!"

"Oh my. We have a zero tolerance for staff abuse, Miz Kochanski, yes? I suggest you leave my office before I call security."

Kochanski wanted to say something. Something witty and cutting and nasal-ly. Nothing came to mind. In the face of Valley's pointed finger, she left.

(ooo)

Lister leaned the side of his head against the cool Plexiglas enclosure. Inside, Rimmer lay beneath a web of pulsing plastic tubes.

A hand slid onto his shoulder. He didn't need to look up.

"They say he's healing well. He's not going to die." Kris' voice was strained.

Lister slipped his hand over hers. She was trying to be strong for him. Though she really had the most right to be shattered. Maybe. Lister rubbed his eyes. He couldn't keep everything straight in his mind. "What's the bad news?"

"Everything that's happened to him. The shock, the trauma." Kris squeezed his hand. He could feel her fingers trembling. She swallowed. "Doctor Valley says that they won't wake him. Even when he's healed."

"Why?"

"He's red-lining. He'll probably go Singular soon." Kris stepped away from Lister.

Lister stood and turned to her. "We can't just leave him like this."

Kris crumpled against the doorframe.

"Kris!" Lister moved to her side, catching her elbow and pulling her against him. "What's wrong?"

Even as her body shook, her voice remained level—mechanical. "The computers in medical bay are on automatic—just running off protocol. And protocol dictates that someone with a red-lining endocrine signature is a threat to the crew and, in an emergency situation, must be disposed of."

"So?" Lister hugged Kris tighter. "A few days in the brig—"

"Not the brig. Lethal injection."

Lister's mind sputtered. "What?"

"The Epsilon-Nine tragedy proved that even one red lining prisoner is one too many. If he's left alive, even under sedation, we'd could be one power failure away from mass murder." Kris turned in Lister's arms. "It's protocol. We're in a compromised situation. No unnecessary risks will be taken. Once he's capable of surviving on his own the automatic systems will—"

Lister pulled away from Kris sharply, leaving her floundering.

"It's not my decision. Dave!" She pulled on his arm. "Look at me!"

"You're a fuckin' Officer." Lister rounded on her. "Save him."

She stepped back. "Only the Captain and Holly— _their_ Holly— can countermand emergency protocols."

Lister paced over to Rimmer. Inside his little plastic cocoon the man was sallow from iodine staining, his eyes closed, and nostrils twitching. Lister propped his elbow on the surface and leaned into his hand. "We'll strike a deal with Hollister."

"No."

Lister looked up. Todhunter. The former first officer moved to stand in front of Lister and Kochanski. "There is no assurance that Hollister will countermand protocol once he's in power. Hollister is… unfit to lead in a situation like this. If I let you return him to command… I'd be putting the whole crew at risk."

Lister stood, his arms folded over his chest. "So we let Rimmer die? No way, man."

"You understood the situation before—"

"That was before…" Lister shook his head. "No way."

Todhunter shook his head. "After Nigel and Bob merge Red Dwarf's propulsion system with the Wildfire engine… we can work on deactivating the protocol." Todhunter hesitated. "I'm sorry Dave. I have to think of the whole crew."

Lister nodded, closing his eyes. "No sure thing."

"None either way," Todhunter replied.

"How did you find out?" Kochanski asked, her voice was strained.

"Valley told me on my way in." Todhunter shifted.

Lister looked up at him. He seemed almost as exhausted as Lister felt. Dry and lifeless.

"Have you figured out how to use the Wildfire?" Kochanski was all business.

"No. It's almost impossible—"

"Wait. What about Rimmer's personality algorithm? Ace must have known, and Ace is in Rimmer—"

"Of course! We can scan it for the information." Todhunter turned sharply towards the door. He paused a moment before closing the door. "I'm sorry." He offered, quietly.

Lister rubbed his eyes. "Don't say that yet, yeah?"

(ooo)

Lister sat in the waiting room lounge. He stared at his hands.

"You made the right choice," Kochanski said, for the umpteenth time. And for the umpteenth time it made Lister feel no better.

"I can't lose him," Lister said. "I've lost him too many times." When he'd said all that about not giving in to Hollister, it was before Nigel had said ''is heart's stopped' and Lister's nerve had shattered.

Kochanski caught his shoulders. "We've got to get away from here. Kryten says—"

"Yeah, I know."

"What about that O-G AI, did she find out anything—"

"Naw. She spent the whole time rattin' us out. It was probably bullshit what she said. Just trying to get us to get her down there so she could alert the rest of them."

Kochanski fell silent.

"He's gonna die," Lister sobbed.

"Not necessarily." Kochanski rubbed his back. "Look, in a few seconds Nigel's going to activate the coupled Wildfire engine and at least one of our problems will be solved."

Holly's com on Kochanski's wrist crackled. She brought it up. A fuzzy image of Holly appeared. The image said, "that's it then, we're throwin' the switch."

It was a bit like being blown up like a balloon, Lister thought. And then snapping back again, except yer head was still a little over inflated.

"Woah." He said. "Was that it?"

Kochanski brought up her com. "Where are we, Holly?"

"In orbit," Holly replied. "A bit underwhelming, innit?"

"Orbit around what?"

"Just a sec. It's a desert world. Atmosphere is mostly nitrogen, some oxygen. High background radiation. You fleshly types'd have trouble down there, I s'pect. There's a lot of magnetic interference. No magnetosphere, though. Wait."

"What?" Kochanski gripped her com.

"I'm pickin' something up. A big thing in orbit."

Lister saw something flicker at the edge of his vision. He glanced towards the large screen in the waiting room. It was on and a man was speaking, mutely.

Another_him_ stared back.

"A small moon?" said Holly.

Lister stood, moving towards the image. The man looked like him. He looked exactly like the fascist dictator of a noir world Lister had hallucinated becoming—slicked back and straight hair, a well tailored suit and a beatific certainty in his eyes. The Voter-colonel. Lister shivered. "Who is that, Kris?"

"It's a ship, Dave. A big one. It's transmitting a signal. Holly…_Executive_ Holly's got it on screen." Holly said, almost inaudible under Kochanski's hand.

"Volume!" Lister shouted at the screen.

"—Dave Lister and Arnold Rimmer. If they are surrendered, the rest of you will be freed. If you make this difficult, your deaths will be likewise difficult. Thank you for your cooperation. End broadcast."

The image winked out and the screen returned to a mindless JMC loss-prevention commercial – featuring two technician class crew in 'how not to use a wrench'— on the closed circuit channel.

Kochanski stared at Lister. "That was…"

"Me." Lister finished for her.


	21. Twenty Third Century Man

-1Red Dwarf Fanfic: Last Humans

Chapter 19: 23rd Century Man

Summary(flashback): A working-class kid from Liverpool makes good.

Warnings: Language, sexual situations, slash, John/Lister, Lister/Rimmer(implicit)

Beta: Rack

Chapter Rating: MA(18 )

(ooo)

23rd Century Man

(ooo)

Lister slipped through the boisterous crowd of Swedish tourists. At the door to the Liverpool hostel he hesitated and stood by it, nodding and smiling at the exiting tourists.

When the last Swede in the group had assembled outside the hostel, Lister chanced a look in.

The coast was clear. None of the hostel staff was in eye-shot. Lister swaggered in, winking at a group of blond girls in braids half asleep on the hostel couches. He made a bee-line for the cafeteria and slipped into the line of late-morning stragglers up for breakfast.

No one questioned him as he waited in line and the bored staff barely registered him as they dished up scrambled eggs, bacon and a tired-looking bun.

Lister cackled as he snuck his prize away from the cafeteria staff. He decided to join a knot of chummy backpackers by the cafeteria entrance.

He slipped into their thickly accented conversation with ease and soon they had decided he was every bit a part of their group as Thorgnyr, Esben and Halvar.

After swapping amusing fishing stories and explaining where to find the best nightlife in Liverpool, Lister excused himself, begging stinkiness.

Lister went through the hostel halls, dodging staff and trying each room door in turn.

Eventually one opened and he stepped inside.

A groggy girl looked up at him from her bed and offered up a word of protest.

Lister smiled fetchingly and explained, via hand gestures, that her cousin Halvar or Esben or Thorgnyr had told him he could use the shower and that he wouldn't be any time at all.

She blinked at him.

He slipped into the bathroom, shut and locked the door.

Lister grinned at himself in the mirror and unzipped the outside pocket of his satchel. I'd been three years since he'd finally got off Red Dwarf and never a day went by he didn't thank a non-existent God that he wasn't still on that stifling gigantic Tonka-toy, slowly turning into a hollowed-out version of himself.

Of course, there was one regret.

Lister shoved it out of his mind. With a flourish he set his picture of Fiji against the mirror and a picture of his dear, departed Frankenstein beside it. A small meow alerted him that someone wanted freedom. Lister unzipped the main part of his satchel and a small black head poked out.

"Vlaad. Come on, yeh." Lister reached in to let Frankenstein's son out of the bag. The cat leapt to the floor, stretching his long legs and inspecting everything. Then he decided all was well and leapt onto Lister's shoulder, setting about grooming himself.

Lister set about cleaning his teeth, then set Vlaad on the toilet, pulled off his clothes and stepped into the shower. He smiled into the hot stream jetting from the showerhead.

Three years of pure slumming. Of sleeping on friend's couches, scrumming breakfasts from hostels, no responsibilities. Three years of detox from that nothing existence on Red Dwarf.

Lister soaped up his chest.

"Lunar city seven…"

He stepped forward to wash off the soap, looking down as he rinsed his privates.

And screamed. He slipped and barked his elbows trying to keep himself upright.

His pubes were grey.

Lister panted. He peeked down. The first look had been such a shock he'd thought all his pubes were grey-but it was just a small thatch, right below his belly button. Lister gave those hairs a sharp tug and winced. They were attached.

He never even thought pubes turned grey.

Shaken, he stepped out of the shower and towelled himself dry, taking care not to look below his waist.

He dressed quickly, put Vlaad back in the satchel and stared at his picture of Fiji.

When he exited the Swedish girl was gone. Lister left.

The rest of the day passed in a haze.

(ooo)

The UPSC office clerk eyed Lister's application. The man looked smart in his brass-buttoned blue over-coat and cap. "So your one qualification is that you spent 3 years onboard a JMC ship as a chicken-soup dispenser repairman?"

Lister grinned and nodded.

"You do realize that the UPSC takes only the absolute cream of the crop. That our standards are light-years beyond the International Space Corps program. Even top-flight ESC personnel have trouble passing them. We require scholastic, physical and psychological excellence." The UPSC clerk eyed Lister imperiously.

"I didn't know," Lister said. "When do I start?"

"Mister Lister. You are six years too old to begin our training program. Not to mention that your… resume… is riddled with year-long gaps in employment. Your academic achievement… dropping out after a week of… Art School, no less, is beyond dismal. Just looking at you tells me you could never pass the physical requirements. And, psychologically—"

Vlaad took that moment to offer up a vocal complaint about his continued imprisonment.

"Ah, sorry. Just a mo'." Lister lifted his hand and caught the zip to his satchel. He opened it a few inches and Vlaad popped his head out.

"What is that?" The clerk asked.

"It's me cat."

"Just. Leave."

"What, now?"

"Yes. Go."

"So yer gonna call me, then?"

A vein above the clerk's eye twitched. He tried to speak several times and seemed about to get something out when another clerk came over and whispered into his ear.

"You've got to be joking!" He squeaked in response.

The second clerk shook his head no and brought a stamp down on Lister's application. Approved.

Lister grinned and brought Vlaad up for a snuggle.

"I can't believe this," the clerk fumed. "This is insane."

The second clerk shrugged. "Orders. Looks like the right stuff isn't workin'. So the brass is gonna try summa the wrong stuff."

(ooo)

Lister slid into the cockpit of the Blaze. Extensive simulations had proven that he of all the many candidates—most with advanced degrees in astronavigation and in perfect physical condition—was the only one capable of handling the strange psychological dynamics of the Blaze's Perpetual Inertia Engine.

He'd had to go through months of intense physical conditioning. A lot of it had involved army grade psychedelic substances. Lister'd excelled at that part; although he'd never quite understood the goal. He just accepted there was one. And the UPSC made top notch marijuana gin. Of course there'd been the running, lots of that. Which hadn't been fun. Or any of the other physical conditioning. But, over all, it hadn't been bad. He couldn't complain. And they'd let him keep Vlaad.

Overall it'd been a good end to a choice made on a whim. "We're Desperate." The recruiting poster had said. And far be it from Lister to ignore a cry for help.

Lister turned to give a thumbs up to the mechanics in the bay. They returned his gesture with a cheer.

The Blaze canapé closed. Lister took a deep breath, his mind whirling. He would be the first man ever to be able to use the PIE drive to explore deep space.

They'd given him coordinates that would have him a few light years away from the galactic core. He would see things no human had ever seen in two centuries of space travel.

A test pilot in the space core. Lister shook his head. His grandma had been thrilled when she found out. Even offered Lister one of her precious cigars. And his adopted father? Lister hadn't seen him more baffled or more proud. Lister knew neither of them expected him to do great things. Good things? Yes. Have a happy life? Definitely. But not great things. Not things that ended up in the history books.

As the Blaze taxied down the hanger, Lister looked over to the launch window. All of the former pilot candidates were there, watching him and waving. One stood a bit separate from the others. He was unusually tall, broad-shouldered, dark haired. Lister's buzz fizzed out a bit. It was John Rimmer. Arnold's older brother and the former front-runner for the test pilot position.

Even from fifty feet away, Lister could feel the man's anger and resentment or, at least, some sort of intense emotion emanating from him. Arn's opposite, in confidence and competence. It hadn't surprised Lister to find out that John was a prick. A hard, smug, competent prick with the all the warmth and human feeling of a flash-frozen mastodon.

The moment Lister'd been awarded the honour of flying the Blaze John'd stared at him with astonishment—the perfect man for most historic flight in one hundred and fifty years. Lister saw himself through John's eyes: a short, chubby, slobby scouser in dreads, carrying a cat.

Lister saluted John as he passed. The man turned away in disgust.

The bay doors opened. Jupiter rose above them, Ganymede a dot of dark rock against it. The Blaze engines wound up. Lister settled the helmet over his head and locked it in place. Sensors sucked against his forehead, depositing trails of sticky lubricant.

Lister relaxed into the strange sensation of the PIE drive feeding on his brainwaves, like his cerebral cortex was doing a shimmy while his cerebellum did a jig.

Get off, he thought and the Blaze leapt up from under him like a hot curry.

He didn't see the bay doors pass--too busy trying to take a breath in the overwhelming gravity. The hydraulics in his zoot suit made a faint rushing sound, jumpstarting his stalled circulation and clearing his head. At some point, Jupiter slipped past the aft edge of his canapé. Lister was left in the openness of space. As always he felt a crushing sort of lonesome.

Lister glanced over his shoulder. The sun was slipping away by increments. A safe distance sensor on the Blaze dash blinked. He was good to go.

_Start the PIE._

Lister expanded till he was intimately connected with every single particle in the universe. Then he slipped under them, into a space that constricted him till he was flat as a pancake. He stretched underneath every galaxy in the universe. He centred in on one and started contracting towards it.

In a second he snapped back into his body, remembering in the last instant to click the Blaze back together like a Kinder surprise toy.

Lister chuckled. "Like waking up from a Marijuana Gin binge."

Over his right shoulder lay the galactic core. It looked like the dense froth of a good domestic had spilled all over a glossy black bar and each bubble in it was a point of light. Beautiful.

Lister licked his lips and looked back the way he'd come. He could see the arching outer arm of the Milky way and somewhere in that smear of light was home.

"Boss."

(ooo)

The chronometer in the Blaze's cockpit registered just under thirty minutes when Lister returned to the Ganymede station and re-docked.

The Blaze came to a stop the canapé popped open and Lister pulled off his helmet. Ten feet below him the crew of the Ganymede station, the scientists and mechanics of the PIE project and his fellow test-pilots cheered.

Lister grinned down at them, swung his legs out of the cockpit and let himself drop into their raised arms.

They carried him to the recreational area aboard the station where foil sacks of ale—not the synthetic stuff, but high quality Earth-exports—were being cut open.

Someone offered Lister a pint. He poured it over his head and cheered. Everyone followed his lead.

The evening passed in a blur. Eventually Lister had to concede to his exhaustion and—while the Russians seemed to be gaining their second wind—bowed out of any further fun.

Before he could leave he was pulled to the side.

John.

Lister stared unsteadily up at him.

"You're the man of the hour." John offered him a thin smile. "Listen, Dave. I know we haven't always seen eye to eye. I suppose I'm space corps old school. What makes a good pilot is excellent physical condition, years of hard training, intelligence and discipline. Not the ability to weather a bender. Regardless, I'd like to think we could become friends after a fashion." John thumped him. Lister grimaced and grabbed his now-smarting shoulder. "I'm going to invite you to the Rimmer Family Gala. We've been inviting the best and the brightest to come and join us since my uncle landed admiral. Our family practically is the Space Corps. What do you say? Come hang out with the winners."

(ooo)

Lister moved through the crowd of Rimmers towards the bar. Booze was complimentary, and high quality, which was the best thing Lister could say about the "Rimmer Family Gala." Fake chumminess, fake charming ness, fake laughter, fake Formica, fake everything. Lister felt like rolling in baking soda just to get the grease off.

The bartender served up stout in a tall, tapered glass. Pretentious, Lister thought, as he ducked behind a tree fern and knocked back his fifth beer.

None of his friends from the Ganymede Station were there. None of them made the cut. Although Lister recognized lots of the so-called high fliers and they were just as fake as the Rimmers.

Lister was beginning to understand Rimmer's fetishization of right and proper behaviour, his obsession with the superficial trappings of command and prestige. He'd grown up in this… this… mess of starched shirts and cuff-links and fine Cuban cigars. Of pretension.

Lister snorted into his beer. And for a man who'd had to have his feet surgically extracted from his mouth at birth, navigating this maze of manners and wit must have been a nightmare.

Unfortunately for Arn, his family was the right stuff right down to the bone. His uncles were all highly ranked in the space corps, in fact the only one who wasn't was his father and Arn. Arn's mother had pointed that out to Lister no less then seven times while she drank herself into a tizzy and draped herself on each of Arn's uncles in succession.

And his brothers, or half-brothers judging from the way Arn's mum carried on… every single one of them had grit under pressure, finesse and smarts. Too bad they lacked a speck of humanity between them.

The younger up-and-comers had hounded him about every single detail of his life, hanging on his every word, mining him like a prestige deposit, as if trying to find a kernel of wisdom they could use to advance themselves. Lister had answered their questions till he couldn't stand talking about himself anymore.

"There you are." A woman's cackle.

Lister stifled a groan.

"Why are you hiding? You're the man of the hour."

"Yah, I know." Lister turned towards Arn's mum.

"You should be thrilled, you of all people… managing to achieve such a thing." She sloshed martini onto the front of his tee-shirt.

Lister frowned; he didn't care about the martini.

"I'm amazed. A working-class Liverpool boy like you. And an orphan no less. And to think my youngest can't even make it to astronavigation officer first class. I gave that boy everything he needed. And he did nothing with it. Although God knows he likes to complain he got 'none of the advantages.' But you just have look at his brothers to know that's… that's… non… nonse…bullocks!" She steadied herself against the tree fern. "It's not easy being a widow you know, God rest Arnold's soul. He was a good man." She sniffed. "A short man. But a good one. Well, adequate at least."

"I'm not feelin' well, ma'am," Lister said politely. "I think I'll be goin'." He hadn't found Arnold yet. In fact Lister was afraid Arnold hadn't come.

"So soon?" Arn's mum hiccoughed. "But you just got here!"

"Yah, well, I've got teh get up early tomorrow. Yeh know, Space Corps business." Lister stepped back, unsettling her. She tripped and Lister caught her.

"Oh my," Arn's mum said. "You're stronger then you look. Must be all that conditioning you Space Core boys do."

Lister's stomach crawled as Arn's mum let her hand wander southwards. "What a handsome lad, you are."

"Sorry, I've got teh go!" Lister pushed her away and ran.

Before he could escape he collided with John.

"Easy there, chum. You spilled my drink."

"I gotta be goin'."

"Nonsense! The party's just started." John leaned close, slipping his arm over Lister's shoulder. "Wait till the ladies have retired." John took a sip of his cordial. "Then the men-folk get to have their fun." John's thigh lightly brushed Lister's crotch.

Lister froze. Was that…? Naw, couldn't be. He took another swallow of beer. "I thought Arnold would be here."

"He's probably cowering in his old bedroom on the third floor. Mum sent him up there after he dropped a pint of bitter down the Rear Admiral's pants. He can't handle the pressure. Pressure? What pressure? You regal an amusing anecdote here, drop a name there, do a bit of brown-nosing… and then you find some wet—" John looked right at Lister, "bird… and you have a good shag."

"Aren't you married?" Lister grimaced.

John lifted his hand, his ring finger was absent a ring. "Not tonight. One night off from being the upstanding, all-around moral and decent husband. I figure it's a fair trade for putting a roof over my wife's head. And for hiring the pool boy." John pushed forward against Lister.

Lister stepped back and found he had nowhere to step to. He realized John had somehow manoeuvred him into a courner behind an outcropping of bonsai spruce. "So..." Lister chuckled. "What… er… lass do you have your eye on?"

John blinked and looked back towards the party. "They're all a bunch of schnitzel-faced, corn-fed Io girls. I'm thinking of something a little more lean and dark." John leaned closer, grinding his hips against Lister's.

Oh crapping smegging crap. Lister's mind churned as he registered John's hard-on and his lips at about the same time. The man stank of cherry liquor and the same wretched sandalwood reeking aftershave Arn used. And, under that, he smelled something like Arn. And he looked a lot like Arn. Lister's reptile brain said, Arn.

John laughed against Lister's lips and put enough distance between them to glance down at Lister's suddenly tight black jeans. "Thought so."

"John!" A laugh behind them. "You rubbing up against some piece of a—?"

John stepped back, revealing Lister. The laugh was cut short.

"Oh, er…" One of John's pilot buddies stared at them both. "I didn't—"

"Shut it." John levelled a look at his friend that gave Lister chills.

The friend backed down and away. "I'll just…er… be going…" He ran.

Lister took that moment to slip past John. John caught his shoulder, stopping him. "I'll see you around."

Lister shrugged out of his grip and fled. He edged the periphery of the party and managed to escape the Rimmer's conservatory into their foyer.

John had said the third floor. Lister looked up the main staircase. He glanced around to see if anyone was watching. No one was.

He took the stairs three by three. The second stair case was a bit harder to find. It was tucked into an alcove.

The third floor had a single room with a single door off the landing. Lister leaned against the door, listening. He couldn't hear anything.

Lister tried to catch his breath. He needed to compose himself. He was still hard. Of all people, John Rimmer. But he was damn good looking. And aggressive. Lister bowed his head. It was nice to be on the receiving end of that for once. Not to have to constantly deal with someone else's internal conflicts. But John. The cold, inhuman bastard? Not so cold, really. Warm, actually. Even hot.

New line of thought. Lister gritted his teeth. He thought of Arn's mum. Instant cold shower.

Lister took a deep breath and tried the door. It swung open.

A pair of hazel eyes peered up at him in the dark. Arn sat on his bed, biting his pillow and rocking back and forth.

Lister blinked. So that's it then. The Rimmer family either turns you into a neurotic mess or a human barracuda.

"What do you want? Get out!" Arn blustered. There was no strength behind it. There couldn't be. They had too much history.

Lister stepped into the room. "Look. I came here for you, yeah? I don't care about the rest of yer family. Just you."

"Piss off! Do you realize how much I've had to hear about you this past week? The smegging hero of the smegging space corps?"

Lister stepped over to Arn's bed and sat down. "I know. I talked to yeh mum. Or she talked at me. Look, I'm sorry…"

Arn turned away from him.

Lister tsked and grabbed the man's shoulders, pulling him against his chest. "It's hard for you, yeah? I get that." He felt Arn stiffen then relax. Even in three years that hadn't changed. Lister smiled to himself. "I didn't do this to make your family happy."

"Why did you do it? To show me up? To prove you're better then me?"

"Naw. It just happened man. One minute I was on the streets, the next me and me cat were in the corps." Lister caught him up tighter. "I'd give it up in a beat to be with you."

"I don't want to be with you," Arn retorted. "I'm not a damn poof."

Lister sighed. "I love you." When Arn didn't respond in kind, once again Lister felt like he was throwing the words into a pit. It hurt. As always. Stung like anything.

"I don't blame you for sittin' up here. Your family—" Lister shook his head, unable to come up with the right word. He looked around the room. It was small and dusty. The walls were covered in posters of old military heroes, the shelves stacked with strategy games and war history tomes. Lister could feel the dreams of glory Arn'd escaped into as a child. Smeggin' cracked it was.

"You left me," Arn said finally.

There were words Lister wanted to say. Words about how hard it had been, watching himself get old on Red Dwarf, needing to be free to be Lister. Resenting Arn for every minute he had to stay cooped up in that over-regulated tin can. Lister hadn't wanted to leave Arn. He'd wanted Arn to realize that Red Dwarf was a dead end for both of them. And he'd thought him leaving might jump start that realization.

"I want you to come to my ranch on Fiji." Lister said. He pulled out a ticket from his pocket. "It's two way. The fare is completely paid. You can get the time off. I know you've got months comin' to you."

Arn refused to take it. Lister placed it on his nightstand instead.

"It wasn't anything more then frustration." Arn said. "That's it, a bit of sexual frustration."

"However you want to think of it, fine," Lister snapped. Then he slid his hand against the side of Arn's face and cupped the back of his head, pulling him in for a kiss.

Arn pulled back before Lister could make contact. "Go, please."

"You care that much about what your family thinks?" Lister rose, angry.

Arn shook his head.

"Your family isn't exactly what they seem, either. Your mum throws herself at anythin' with a pulse. Your brother… You should have been down there tonight…"

"Don't insult my family." Arn glared.

"It makes me so…" Lister's hands fisted. "Why can't you choose me over them? They don't even care about you."

"What do you want from me, Dave?" Arn asked.

The use of his first name drew Lister up short. "What?"

"What am I supposed to do? Go to Fiji and be your bleeding housewife? You're the smegging hero of the universe now. If I can't live up to my brothers how in God's name am I going to live up to you?"

"You don't have to. I don't care about this shite. I don't."

Arn bowed his head. "I do."

Lister swore silently. "Well, that's your problem. You could be happy, man. It's staring you right in the face."

Arn didn't answer.

Lister turned away. There was nothing left to say. Nothing at all. "I'm leaving the ticket with you." Lister paused in the doorway. He didn't want to leave. He wanted to turn around and grovel, beg and plead, bargain… anything but leave. "Bye."

(ooo)

Lister lit a smoke in a remote part of the Rimmers' conservatory, fuming.

"What is my brother to you?"

Lister started. John had materialized out of thin air. Lister tipped the ash off his cig and shrugged. "We used to be friends."

"Arn? Friends?" John scoffed and stood beside Lister. "What a bizarre notion."

"He's not that bad." Lister set his cig in his ear and took a swig from his mug of ale. "He's a little rough around the edges."

"He's too soft." John slipped out his pipe and lit up. "Way too soft to be raised by mum. And I'm not surprised he's turned into a jittery, obsessive little wierdy what with him being so close in age to those hooligans Harold and Frank."

"He respects you."

"That's part of his problem. Never been able to see past the surface of things. All of us are faking it as we go along." John leaned against an ash tree and puffed on his pipe. "I know I'm a prick, Dave. I chose to survive my bitch-queen of a mother and my lunatic of a father with something of my sanity intact. Harold and Frank were just born pricks. Arnold had a chance to be something else. Something a bit more human. I was too late and too deep into myself to ever help him out in that regard."

Lister stared at him.

John seemed to feel Lister's stare and glanced up at him. "What? Pricks can't be self-aware?"

"I didn't expect…"

"Whatever. Look. Do you want to screw? It'll be meaningless, I promise. My wife is coming up with the kids tomorrow—I mean today and I said I'd at least give an eight hour buffer between her and whoever I pick up. There's a guest house just fifty feet away…"

Lister's eyes flicked towards John. He felt like smeg, rejected—again—by Arn. Shagging his brother… It wasn't right. He knew that. But he was miserable, horny and… drunk. And horny.

"Morals, huh?" John tipped out his pipe and slipped it into his pocket. "If it makes you feel any better, my wife and I have an agreement. Don't look at me like that." An expression of absolute defeat crossed John's face. "If I could have changed anything… Well, that wasn't my choice, was it? My wife turned out to be very much like my mom, god bless her soul."

Lister hesitated. John looked so smegging lost. Vulnerable. For a moment he looked like Arn.

Lister held out his hand, hesitant. John took it as some sort of invitation and grabbed Lister by the waist and pushed him down, kissing Lister with a focus and drive that Arn'd never had the balls to show.

Lister let John slip off his shirt, then unbuckle his pants, turn him around, till he was half naked and knee deep in muck. For a moment Lister panicked. What if this was some evil practical joke… but then John moved against him and Lister could tell it was no joke to John.

John's fingers wrapped around the base of Lister's penis as he slid his own between Lister's thighs. They moved together like that, rubbing and teasing, till Lister was panting and wishing there was something more to it.

"It'd hurt like hell," John said, seeming to read Lister's mind.

Instead John got a bit more clever with his hand and Lister came, splattering the mud and ferns.

A few more thrusts and John was done too, leaning heavily into Lister's back, whispering not-very-sweet nonsense into Lister's ear.

Lister felt sleazy.

He was starting to like John and that made him feel even worse.

Neither feeling stopped him from coming twice more that night in the muck with John's hand around his cock.

They never made it to the guest house.


	22. Twenty Third Century Clone

-1Red Dwarf Fanfic: Last Humans

Chapter 20: Clone

Summary(flashback): Lister decides to compromise his morals for love.

Warnings: Language, character death(in the past), sexual situations, slash, John Rimmer/Lister, Lister/Rimmer(implicit)

Beta: Rack

Chapter Rating: MA(18 )

Note: Sorry for the clutter. Trying to get this finished!

(ooo)

Clone

(ooo)

The Chief Administrative Officer aboard the Ganymede Station leaned over his desk, his sleeves puckering at the elbows. He stared in an imposing way down at Lister. Behind him his large grandfather clock tapped out the time like an impatient gym teacher.

Lister leaned back in his chair, refusing to be imposed upon. Being called to the CAO office was a regular occurrence for Lister. Not a week went by that he didn't violate some obscure Space Corps regulation or another. Usually threatening to quit was enough to shut the man up. They were terrified of losing their one and only PIE pilot. Lister knew this.

The CAO's chair creaked as he leaned back. Not a hair of him relaxed. "We want your permission to clone you."

"Hrm. No." Lister replied. "Now, about me vacation—"

"Mister Lister. We've tried to find another PIE pilot like you. We've looked everywhere. We tested your childhood friends, your adopted family, your neighbours in Liverpool. We've tested a half million people around the globe and in the colonies. None of them, not a single one, showed a speck of aptitude. We're losing hope here. You are utterly unique and we haven't a clue why."

Lister shrugged. "Me vacation—"

"Do you understand what I'm saying? If you're the only person alive who can use the PIE technology that creates an unworkable bottleneck for science and exploration. The Intergalactic Transportation Collective has put trillions of dollars into this research. We can't fail them because of this one snag. We can't fail the human race."

"I don't care. Really." Lister sighed.

"We don't have a clue you came from. We can't locate your parents and we've even tried comprehensive DNA scans. We've picked up potential uncles, a few first cousins, an aunt but nothing else. Nothing closer. And they all tested negative. It's like you dropped out of another dimension." The CAO shook his head. "It's an impossible situation."

"My vacation, sir?"

The CAO's shoulders slumped. "How much time do you want?"

"Six months."

"Fine."

Lister stood to leave. The CAO stared at his desk, defeated. As Lister reached the door, he spoke, "Dave. Think about what this means to humanity. To have this universe-altering technology and be unable to use it."

(ooo)

Lister let go of the mechanical soil tiller and looked back at his handiwork. Most of his rows were cock-eyed, and the heat and humidly was killing him.

Vlaad offered a plaintive meow from where he was lounging a few feet away under a broad leafed palm.

"It's not like yer helpin' any, yeah."

Vlaad's meow became more insistent.

"Fine. Let's go." Lister wiped his brow with a rag and trudged towards his little cinderblock house.

Behind it lay a valley, greener then anything Lister'd ever seen, and a hazy, purple-black mountain beyond that. Low lying mist clung to the valley sides and the sounds of birds—all colours of the rainbow, the same birds Lister remembered from his gran's living room jungle mural—echoed up from under the canapé.

Lister took a deep breath. The air smelled of mud and water and frangipani.

Inside his house, Lister stripped off his gloves and pulled the cat food from the cupboard. He tipped a half cup into Vlaad's bowl and got himself a glass of juice from the fridge.

Sitting down at the table, he sipped his juice and listened to Vlaad munching.

He was coming. He was coming. Lister grinned. He checked the flight schedule again. Arnold would have landed two hours ago, got through somewhat haphazard Fiji customs and boarded a taxi to Lister's place an hour ago.

Which meant he'd be there in minutes. Minutes.

Lister looked at his watch. Minutes. Seconds. His grin widened. Vlaad jumped into his lap, rubbing his body against Lister's chest. Lister rubbed him back, beaming down at him.

Arn'd finally—after months of Lister sending pleading letters— finally said 'yes, I'll come.' He'd also said some other stuff Lister didn't care as much about. Stuff concerning confidential files on Hollister and, what he believed, would be a very quick promotion to Captain's attaché. Lister didn't care about that, at all. Except he had the vague suspicion that the prospect of promotion had given Arn the confidence to take Lister's offer up.

Lister glanced out the window to his drive way, cranking his smile up another notch.

Six hours later, and still alone, Lister checked and double checked the flight schedule. He called up Jupiter Air's customer service line and inquired about the ticket he'd purchased. He asked about the flight booking. The attendant told him that, yes, it had been booked for that day and time. But, no, no one had boarded by the name of Arnold Rimmer.

(ooo)

Lister sat outside John's quarters on the Ganymede Station. He'd cut his vacation time short to try and find out what had happened to Arnold. Vlaad lay in his lap, rubbing his head against Lister's hand.

It was a long time before John came. When he did he helped Lister to his feet and invited him inside. John wrinkled his nose at Vlaad but said nothing.

Lister'd seen the inside of John's quarters before. Many times before. He felt a twinge of guilt.

"Have a seat," John said, pointing to one of the two chairs at his table. Then he turned and pulled a thermos and two glasses out of his cupboard. He set both on the table and poured them full to the brim. "Before I say anything, I want you to have a drink." John sat down opposite Lister and tossed back his own glass.

Lister sipped his glass and gagged. It tasted like engine de-greaser. He looked up at John who shook his head and jerked his hand in a "drink" motion. Lister knocked it back and looked at John expectantly. John refilled both glasses.

"How many times?"

"Till I'm satisfied."

Lister swallowed his second and thumped the glass down. "Yer scarin' me."

Two more re-fills and John seemed satisfied.

Lister was feeling warm. And the knot in his stomach had started to unwind.

John, on the other hand, rolled his glass between his fingers, looking like he wanted to punch something.

"What's wrong?" Lister asked.

"Arn's dead."

The words seemed to roll over Lister, moving from the outside in. Numbing his fingers first, then his hands, then his arms, finally flushing through his whole body. "What?"

John didn't answer. He was crying.

Lister stared at him. "What? No. I just talked with him a week ago. He was going to come to Fiji. He was…"

John shook his head, too choked up to speak.

"What happened?"

John downed another glass and slid a card across the table towards Lister.

Lister picked it up.

The JMC offers its condolences for the loss of your family member, Arnold Judeaus Rimmer. He/She died (due to own negligence/honourably while fulfilling duties) aboard the Red Dwarf.

Charges will/won't be brought forward against your deceased relative's estate for damages incurred related to their negligence in performing his/her duties at this time.

Sincerely, Captain Frank D. Hollister

He, his, and "due to his own negligence" had been circled. The will/won't option had been left unspecified. Lister dropped the card. "Arnold's dead."

John nodded and poured Lister another glass. Lister swallowed it in one go.

"Look, Dave—" John had finally found his voice. "I'm sorry. I know how much he meant to—"

Lister slammed down his drink and stood. "Let's screw," He said and stepped over to John. He leaned down to kiss John and slammed his forehead against the man's brow with the unsteady violence of the motion. John yelped, then caught Lister's shoulders and stood.

Lister kissed John's neck and pulled on his Corps regulation tie to get rid of it. John coughed from the sudden tightness around his throat and pushed away Lister's hands, slipped out the knot and let the tie fall.

Lister got his fingers in between John's shirt collar and throat, his hands fumbling with the brass clasps and getting nowhere. "It's like goddamn armour." Lister fumed.

John slipped his hands down the front of his dress shirt, unlatching each clasp with a quick, practiced motion. Underneath, John's crisp tee-shirt smelled a bit more like him and a bit less like the Core. Lister pressed his face against John's chest. John was taller, broader and more muscular then Rimmer, although by the time Lister'd had it and left Red Dwarf, the skinny little weevil had started to fill out. Lister felt his throat close off. He shoved John onto the bed.

John barked his head against the back wall, "Tch. Easy."

Lister didn't listen. Instead he worked on John's pants, trying to force the hook and eye to pop. When it wouldn't, he pulled John's tailored black slacks down over his slim hips. John was limp. Either the grief or the booze or the hit to the head had done it.

Lister stopped, straddled John's thighs and slumped. The pain was crawling up his throat and he had nothing left to force it away.

"Hey." John said. "Easy there." He sat up and pulled Lister against his chest.

The motion, the contact… Lister couldn't hold back any more. He sobbed, helpless.

(ooo)

Lister woke. It took him a few minutes to realize where he was—in John's quarters—and what had happened the night before. Blessed forgetfulness vanished, replaced by a heavy misery that threatened to suffocate him.

"Morning," John said, slipping into bed and settled Lister against his chest. Lister realized that this was the first time he'd ever woke up with John. John was in pressed flannel pyjamas with a pair of reading glasses on his nose and an envelope in his hand. Lister sniffled. Pressed flannel pyjamas. Arn would have worn silk, but he would have pressed them too.

Lister lay back, comforted a bit by John's presence. He glanced up at the older man, realizing, for the first time, that his eyes were more green hazel then Arnold's yellow-hazel and his hair was darker and straighter. "What's that?" He nodded at the envelope.

"Someone dropped off a letter in the morning." John replied and tore it open. "Ah. More news from the JMC."

John read in silence. Then threw it down and sighed. "Fucking gits."

Lister picked it up.

The JMC has been successful in its suit against the estate of Arnold J. Rimmer. His/Her assets have been seized. Unfortunately, the award exceeds the total value of his/her estate. As per the JMC contract, JMC will re-instate the personality algorithm of the deceased to work off the shortfall. If the cost of maintaining a hologram exceeds his/her wage category, be advised that relatives of the deceased are responsible for the outstanding balance. Thank you.

Lister threw the card down in disgust. "What is this smeg? He's not a piece of equipment!" Then Lister realized. "Of course! His hologram. We could have 'm back!"

Jim shook his head. "I don't know, Dave. I understand how you feel but… that kind of life, it's worse then being a quadriplegic. It's like a living death."

"I want to get it. At least… At least I'll have something of him."

"Do you know how hard it is to purchase personality algorithms? I don't even know if you can privately. You wouldn't even have a chance at offering a bid. Not unless you have some enormous corporation up your sleeve. Plus, if you even got him, the amount of power it would take to turn him on and keep him running… you'd have to be a trillionaire to afford it."

(ooo)

"I'll do it." Lister stepped up to the Chief Administrative Officer's desk. "But I have conditions."

The man's eyes narrowed; he leaned back in his chair. "Continue."

"I want to raise the kid as me own. No force growing in a pod. None of that. I don't want you brass-buttons screwin' around with him."

The CAO paused to consider, then nodded.

"And I want you to get me a personality algorithm from the JMC mining ship Red Dwarf. I also want you to build a projection unit in me house on Fiji."

The CAO's eyes bulged. "Do you know the cost? That's insane!"

Lister shrugged his shoulders and turned away.

"Think of the cost to humanity! Worlds we'll be unable to explore—"

"Or strip-mine." Lister stopped to counter.

"You're setting humanity back centuries! Millennia! You'll be remembered as the man that ended the space core's exploration of deep sky!"

Lister didn't pause as he stepped through the open door.

"Wait!"

Lister stopped.

"Who is it?"

"Who's what sir?" Lister turned.

"Who is this blasted personality algorithm you want so badly?"

"His name is Arnold Rimmer." Lister grinned.

(ooo)

Lister walked past the observatory deck over the Ganymede Station mess hall. The sounds of boisterous diners filtered up from below. He wasn't cleared for the deck at that hour, but he'd charmed his way into possession of a clearance code.

Something in the hall caught his eye.

A group of dodgy looking blokes—Lister didn't recognize them, they were crew from a shift he never worked—were cheering on someone in the centre of their group. He had his back to the deck windows and he was knocking back shots like nobody's business. A drinking game. Lister grinned.

He was about to leave, when the bloke in the middle half turned.

Lister dropped Arnold's personality disc. With a cry he knelt to pick it up and by the time he was standing again, the group had reformed and hid the shot-drinker from view.

Lister leaned on the glass. Searching. Had it been…? Him? A clone? An adult clone he hadn't known about? Lister's fingers fisted around Arnold's personality disc. The edge cut into his thumb.

He looked down at it, then back into the mess hall. The rowdy band had moved off, probably to the communal game room. Lister shook his head. He'd be talking to that bastard CAO—later.

He jogged off down the hall, swearing to himself. A bit beyond the observation deck was the 4D projection room. Currently it only did deep space imaging, but Lister'd found something to alter it for human holograms. The bloke that'd worked it all out warned him it would be low res. Which meant the hologram itself wouldn't be fully functional.

Lister didn't care.

It'd taken a year to get Arnold back, and another year to cobble together the projection hack.

In the meantime his clone had been born; for now the kid—Jim Lister—was mostly being raised by pediatrians, nurses and professional child development psychologists in the Ganymede laboratory. They'd wanted to make sure everything was on track and within acceptable parameters.

Lister got him on weekends. Not this weekend, though. Jim was undergoing another battery of tests.

Inside the projection room, Lister slipped Rimmer's disc into the drive and powered up the system. He entered the hack into a command line. Entered run.

For a long moment nothing happened. The lights flickered, his box full of stolen parts whirred, and a faintly translucent man appeared, sitting, on the ground.

"Arnold!" Lister knelt and threw his arms around him.

Lister went straight through, landing on his chin. He turned over and laughed. "Arnold!"

The hologram hadn't responded. Instead it looked around itself, scared and frantic. "I can't see! I can't see!" It's arms flailed, trying to find some sort of purchase. "I can't touch anything! Am I dead?"

"Arnold?" Lister sat up, rubbing his smarting chin. It was Rimmer. Lister couldn't touch him, but he'd known that. He'd known it. It was just reflex that had made him reach out. "Arn?" Lister asked again and was met with no recognition once more. "Can't you hear me?"

"Am I dead?" Rimmer repeated. He tried to stand, but was paralyzed, stuck in the position Lister had programmed him to boot up in. "I can't move! Please! Somebody, help me! I think I'm dead!" Rimmer cried out, his arms still flailing, almost as if he couldn't control them.

"Arn?" Lister tried again, and again he tried to reach out to the man. His hand went through Rimmer's cheek.

"I'm dead." Rimmer's arms slumped beside his thighs.

Lister jumped up, trying to get as close as he could to Rimmer without falling through the man. "Rimmer! I'm right here. You're not dead. You're a hologram!"

No recognition.

Rimmer began to sob in earnest. Lister bit his lip, his hands fluttered around Rimmer's face and shoulders.

"If I'm paralyzed. Let me die." Rimmer whispered, face contorted. "I want to feel nothing, nothing at all, not even my own thoughts."

"Please, Arn." Lister couldn't stand any more. "I'm sorry." He said, and reached out to flick the projection unit off.

In the sudden dark, Lister leaned his head into his hands and cried.

(ooo)

"I can't believe yeh did this." Lister slammed his fist down on the CAO's desk. The man started and looked up at Lister, a moment of shame flashing across his face. "You created two clones—"

"We created several, Mister Lister. The cloning process is volatile. You have to have at least five zygotes for every one viable clone. The fact that two clones survived the process. Unexpected chance."

"I told you, one." Lister glared.

"What would you have us do? Kill him?" The CAO steepled his fingers and stared Lister down.

Lister turned away. "I told you no accelerated growth. No personality algorithm transplants and I wanted to raise—"

"We understand your concern—"

"But you don't care?" Lister fumed. "I told you—"

The CAO raised his hand. "But you must realize that we don't know exactly what makes you tick." The CAO swooped up out of his chair. Lister jumped back. "Is it your DNA? Is it your upbringing? We don't have a clue and if we don't account for all the variables… our investment will be lost."

"Yer investment? These are kids."

"Well, not quite." Another voice. Lister's voice.

Lister turned towards the door to the CAO's office. His doppelganger stared back at him. He looked exactly like a ten years younger Lister.

Staring at himself Lister felt shock and then pin-pricks of free-floating panic. He wondered what his clone felt, staring at him.

"Hi," Lister's clone said. "They call me Bexley. Dave Bexley Lister." Bexley held out his hand.

Lister stared at him, mouth gaping. He shook his clone's hand.

"You remember—?"

"Everythin'? Yeah. Right up to our routine backup. A week after we stepped out of the Red Dwarf's stasis pod."

"Are yeh… okay with it?"

Bexley smiled faintly. "I'm me, yeah? That's never going to change."

Lister glanced back to the CAO. The man was smug. Lister's anger deflated into awkwardness. "Well, if you're okay with it." He eyed Bexley. "They haven't made you okay with it, have they?"

(ooo)

"Jim, what yeh doin'?" Lister leaned over his son's—clone's—shoulder and tried to catch a glimpse of whatever it was he had in his hands.

Jim leaned forward to shield it from view, then turned to smile up at Lister. His adoring, guileless smile made Lister feel sad and sick all at once. He patted Jim's shoulder. "Keep yer secrets."

Jim nodded and selected a screw-driver from his array of tools.

Lister moved off into the kitchen and poured himself a cup of coffee. "Pick it up in a bit, yeah? John's comin' later."

"Yes, da." Jim offered up another of his heart-wrenching smiles and turned back to his tinkering.

Lister sipped his coffee, steeling himself for his trip into the attic. Everything seemed to be harder these days. Lister closed his eyes.

A keening wail, muffled, but still distinct echoed through Lister's ranch-style injection molded house. He dropped the cup to the counter—ignored the sound of shattering—and ran for the hidden attic stairs. Pulling them down by the draw-string, he noticed Jim had followed him.

"Go back, Jim." Lister commanded, rushed.

Jim stepped back but continued to watch from down the hall.

Lister pulled hard on the stair and it folded out, bottom scraping against the tile floor.

Up in the attic Lister searched the dark for a faint glow. He couldn't find it. Panic set in. He fumbled around against the far wall, searching for his pair of holo-gloves.

When he found them, he pulled them on and started shoving aside the overturned couch and desk.

The awful sound started up again and this time Lister was able to pinpoint its source. He threw the mattress off the bed and found Arnold curled up on his side underneath it.

Lister knelt beside him. Arnold was naked and slicked with sweat, although it was hard to tell through the thick rubber of the holo-gloves.

Lister touched his shoulder, then tried to hold the man. It was like picking up a cat with a pair of tongs.

Arnold moaned. His eyes fluttered open. He registered Lister and his eyes narrowed. He swatted Lister away. "Get off me, you repulsive git!"

Lister sat back, his head bowed.

"This must be the ninth level of Hell. What did I do to deserve you?" Arnold spat at Lister. "Stuck for eternity with the man I loathe most."

"Look, yeh don't mean that." Lister knew Arnold didn't. Or, at least, his Arnold hadn't. Lister was very much aware that this wasn't his Arnold. Not completely. And he felt terrible for that. He felt guilty for never being able to think of this wretched, vicious creature as his. But he was. Lister's mistake.

Lister helped Arnold stand. "What set you off today?"

"Oh, nothing much, just a little frustration at being completely unable to leave this house, being completely unable to touch anything and having my only company be number one, two and three on my list of people whose presence is less preferable then a tribe of jungle cannibals. Other then that my life is just peaches!"

Lister sat back on his heels and weathered. Lister'd given up trying to explain to Arnold why, exactly, he'd resurrected the man. Rimmer thought Lister's tale of them being lovers was some kind of monstrous, filthy joke and refused to entertain the truth of it. Rimmer decided, instead, that Lister was punishing him due to profound professional jealousy and personal animosity.

"John's coming over." Lister said, helping Arnold sit and then righting the desk.

"Who?" Arnold asked

Lister's stomach sank. "Your brother." Arnold was forgetting more and more of his life. A JMC hologram didn't last much past ten years.

"Oh yes, that smug goit. Tell him that I said 'hi.'" Rimmer paused. "No, that's not right. No. Tell him I told him to 'piss off and die.'"

"He'll be over later today. You could come down."

Arnold didn't answer. He waved Lister away, re-absorbed by a new game of Risk he'd brought up on his hologrammatic computer screen.

Lister watched him, then descended the stairs.

At the bottom, when he could finally lift the folding stairs and close the trap door to the attic, Lister felt relief. And then immediately felt like a monster for feeling relief.

Jim watched from around the courner at the end of the hall.

Lister shook his head and slumped towards him.

"Da? Do you want to go pick uncle John up?" Jim asked. The little project he'd been working on earlier had been packed away. "We could go swimming on the way."

Lister glanced at his clone. "I don't know. I'm pretty tired. John said he'd make his own way here."

If Jim was disappointed, he didn't let on. Lister felt another twinge of guilt and added it to the pile.

"Can I ride Jangles?"

Lister nodded and Jim ran off. His clone gone, Lister settled into his chair and watched the palms swaying in the valley through his picture window.

He was still there when John knocked on the door. Lister looked over. Arn's elder brother waved at him through the wire mesh and opened the screen door to step inside.

Lister was always a little surprised by John's size every time he saw him. Somehow, whenever John was talking with Lister, he always made himself seem about Lister's height. He didn't know how John did it.

Lister had long since realized Jim's magnificent bastard persona was like Arnold's—some sort of shield or defence. Although Jim did it better, or, at least, more confidently. Maybe because he wasn't as attached to it. Lister sighed.

"Hi." John took a chair opposite Lister. He looked flushed from the walk and happy. "How are Jim and Arn?"

"Jim… He's doin' well I suppose. He's got good grades. Arn." Lister stretched his legs out in front of him. "Arn's deteriorating."

"I can hear you two fruits talking about me!"

Lister jumped a bit at Arnold's voice.

John smiled and shook his head. "I imagine he's a handful."

"I know what you two get up to! Don't think I don't. I hear you and it makes me sick."

Lister choked, his face hot. He'd never completely forgiven himself for being with John. Although they weren't, currently, being anything but friends.

John leaned back. "You're full of shit, Arn, and you know it!" He glanced at Lister. "He's guessing. Come on, let's go outside." John stood and walked towards the door. Lister followed after a moment.

John leaned against the porch railing, watching the horizon. It was a clear day; Lister could see all the way to the ocean.

"It's a beautiful place."

"Yeah." It still had an impact on Lister, did Fiji. It managed to stir something in him besides exhaustion and sadness.

"I noticed you've abandoned your garden," John said.

Lister fished in his pocket for his rumpled pack of cigs. John waved for one. "Too much work."

"Doesn't seem like you." John lit his cigarette and offered a light to Lister. "You used to love working with your hands in the dirt."

Lister shrugged.

John turned back to the view. "Can you believe I'm almost retirement age?"

Lister glanced at John. The man still looked like he was an athletic fifty. "Naw."

"Next year they're going to give me a promotion to a desk job." John laughed. "I may just take early retirement."

"That'd be nice." Lister offered. "How's Bexley?"

"Amazing." John said. "He's tough as nails. He's started work on an intra-galactic transit way. I think it's called StarTransit™. It's all very hush-hush."

Lister nodded. "It makes me proud. Weird, yeah."

"Well, he is you." John dropped the butt of his smoke into the can Lister used as an ashtray. "What are you going to do about him?" John shrugged towards the attic.

Lister closed his eyes. "What's there to do?"

"He's draining the life out of you."

"He hates me." Lister leaned onto the porch railing.

"Look at it from his point of view. He doesn't remember your relationship because his personality back up occurred months before it happened. He doesn't understand why you're attached to him. And he's stuck living like a ghost because you chose to bring him back."

"I thought we could work it out, yeah?"

"I don't know, Dave. My brother is horribly literal. I don't think he'll understand that he's in a relationship until he actually is in a physical relationship."

"I can't touch him."

John took one of Lister's smokes and pulled the broken end off. "So he's not going to get it." John grimaced. "I know how hard it must be for you. You see the man you love in there, but you can't get close. You know, if he'd just let you in for a moment... Well, anyway." He glanced back at the sky. "When you and Arn were together, it was one of the few times I could stand him. You managed to knock away some of the bitterness and self-pity. He did…does love you—somewhere in that rat's nest of a heart."

"Hrm," Lister said.

"I'm worried about Jim." John offered, abruptly.

"What? Why?" Lister asked. "He's a good kid. Never gets into trouble. No bullyin', no stealin'. He's a little saint. Can't believe he's my clone."

"Not that. I mean, he's obsessed with saving you, Dave. I don't know how that happened but he should be a selfish little monster like every other kid. He's too absorbed by your problems. He's going to end up resenting you."

Lister stubbed out his smoke and glared at John. "Just another thing I spooned, yeah? Smeg. Add it to the pile."

"You're overwhelmed right now," John continued, in his logical and hard-headed way, "But try to get him involved in something other then trying to fix your life."

"Is that it then? Is it time for your life to be analyzed?"

"I'm…just… Sorry." John bowed his head and kicked at a loose board in the porch. "I don't want either of you to get hurt."

Lister's shoulders slumped, "I don't know how to make it right."

John stepped over and pulled Lister into a hug. He rested his chin on Lister's forehead. Lister could hear him swallow. Odd. He'd never really seen John nervous.

"Look. I wanted to tell you that my youngest went off to college. My wife and I… we haven't slept in the same room for twenty years. She has her house plants…" John trailed off, angling his cigarette up between two fingers and staring intently at the burning end. "She has a creepy relationship with this zucchini plant she bought on Titan. Sometimes I go into the bathroom and it's just sitting in the shower stall emanating smugness." He rubbed the bridge of his nose. "And if she needs human companionship, there's always the pool boy. Her decision to hire him, by the way."

Lister stepped back, puzzled.

"What I mean to say is… I could spend more time with you. We could take our vacations together, that sort of thing."

"Yeah, sure man! Just two blokes livin' large, havin' fun." Lister grinned. "I can get behind that."

John seemed like he wanted to say something more. Then he half turned, shielding his eyes against the glare from the solar reflectors. "Exactly."

"Why don't you unpack your things in the old house?" Lister told him. "We can stay there. Arn will probably appreciate having the house to hisself."

"Sure." John offered Lister a smile and set off towards his rented transport.

Lister watched him go. Jim rode past John on the other side of the driveway fence and waved, Jangle's hooves kicking up clods of dirt. Then he turned Lister's big grey gelding and trotted up to Lister.

"I've something to show you, da." He grinned.

"Yeah?" Lister helped his clone dismount. The boy was light and slender, although Lister remembered being a bit of a chub at his age. Jim tied the gelding to the fence and ran off into the kitchen.

He came back a few excited seconds later with something cradled in his hands. He thrust it at Lister with a huge smile.

Lister took it and slipped off the tea-towel the boy had used to cover it. It was the hologrammatic orchid Lister had bought to brighten up Rimmer's attic a few weeks before.

"Yeah, Jim?" Lister said, confused.

"Touch it, da." Jim pushed Lister's hands towards the stem of the plant.

Lister did. Underneath his fingers he felt something like a stem, if it was covered in a roiling mass of caterpillars. "What?" Lister blinked.

"It's a hologram you can touch." Jim said, his brown eyes gleaming. "It's not quite right yet. I got the idea when Bexley taught me how the PIE engine worked. He sent me some PIE chipsets and I figured out how to use quantum entanglement to access the form the image was taken of. Then I used it as a template for programmable nanites. It's cool, right da?"

For some reason he couldn't explain Lister felt fat tears sliding down his face. "It's smegging boss, Jim."


	23. Twenty Third Century Hologram

Red Dwarf Fanfic: Last Humans

Chapter 21: Twenty Third Century Hologram

Summary(flashback): Rimmer makes the wrong choice.

Warnings: Language, sexual situations, slash, Dave/Rimmer

Beta: Rack

Chapter Rating: M(16 )

(ooo)

Twenty Third Century Hologram

(ooo)

The kitten at the crook of Bexley's elbow gave a plaintive meow. He glanced at it—it was a bit of charcoal grey fluff. He'd found it just outside a service tunnel exit when he'd done some unauthorized poking about during his tour of Red Dwarf. Bexley tucked it back in his jumper and leaned against the gantry railing protecting him from the drop below. Directly ahead was a three story view port.

Through the glass he could see Ganymede—a dark speck against Jupiter's stripy belly. He flicked ash below. Feeling displaced. Feeling bitter.

He didn't like himself when he was bitter. Not at all. The last fourteen years had changed him. He'd stopped responding to the name Dave for one. The rest of it… He wasn't optimistic anymore. He was harder. Tougher. More disciplined. And bitter. In bits.

He didn't like the changes. Well, he accepted them. But sometimes he wished he could go back to the time when there was just one Dave Lister. To a time when he could loose himself in his lack of ambition. A time before he felt robbed.

He was on indefinite hiatus from the UPSC. When he'd first stepped out of the clone-pod the brass'd told him, been honest about it from the very start. He'd been in shock and lived in a haze for a couple years. They'd kept him on a short leash. He had no citizenship, no birth certificates. No where to go. So he'd stayed. A few years later the cold reality was impossible to ignore and he'd stayed because of all that stuff they said about humanity reaching for the stars and helping others fulfil dreams of space-exploration—others that were right in front of him, patting him on the back. And because he was good, really good, at what he did. Good at understanding the PIE technology as well as piloting it. Something the original Dave Lister wasn't so good at. And that was definitely a smeggy little bit of satisfaction.

He didn't want to resent Dave, but he did. He wanted to hate the UPSC, but they always managed to balance on that thin line between despicable and justified. So he just resented them.

Bexley leaned his forehead against the railing. It was times like these he realized how little he'd been given of what he needed.

"Hi."

A woman's voice—nasal and superior. It was the nasally part that made him glance up. "Hey," he said and smiled. The woman was fit. A small girl, about half a head shorter then him—she had a certain brittleness.

"Wait. I know you. You're—"

"I'm not." Bexley said quickly, straightening. "I'm Bexley Lister._Bexley_ Dave Lister."

"Oh." She said and deflated a bit. "You got me excited there for a second…"

Bexley shook his head, turned around and half sat on the railing. He couldn't tell if the woman was being intentionally insulting or was a bit thick. "What's yer name?"

"Oh?" She held out her hand. "My name is Kristine Kochanski."

That made him freeze. She didn't look much like the Kris he knew.

Kochanski cleared her throat.

Bexley realized he'd left her waiting, hand out. He took it and gave it a squeeze. "Want a smoke?" He offered his pack.

"Yeah, actually." She said, pulling one out of his proffered pack. He gave her a light and watched her draw in a few unpractised puffs.

"Yeh've started recently?"

She nodded, looking like she wasn't really paying attention.

"I knew yer mum." Lister offered.

This made Kochanski take notice. "Really?"

"Don't know for sure." Bexley replied, stepping off the railing and turning around to look back at the view. "She worked on this ship, a while back."

"That was her then." Kochanski's voice was eager. "My mum worked on Red Dwarf. Same name as me too."

"So yer the Junior?" He'd bumped into Kris Senior a long time back on the Ganymede station. She'd been talking with the UPSC about outfitting the ship she captained with a PIE engine so they could work the Startransit™ lanes. They'd caught up. But he'd still been in his stunned phase so they hadn't really connected. "Aren't you a bit over-qualified for _mining_?"

Kochanski laughed. It sounded metallic. "Oh yes. Very much so."

"Then why are yeh on Red Dwarf?" The Dwarf hadn't changed much since Bexley remembered being on it. Still dingy, still grey. Still stifling. Still having an issue with quarantine. Bexley grinned at the thought of the kitten.

"Why are you?" Kochanski countered.

Bexley shrugged. "I'll tell yeh mine, if yeh tell me yers." He stubbed out his smoke on the rail, let the butt drop over the edge and grinned at her snarky expression. "I'm here because I want to remember somethin'. I worked on Red Dwarf a long time ago."

"Yes." Kochanski nodded sagely. Then spilled hot ash onto her hand. She yelped, inhaled too hard and started coughing.

Bexley hit her on the back to get things going again. She put her hands up for him to stop. "It's okay." She straightened, her eyes red and watery. "Eh. Did you find what you came back for?"

Bexley didn't answer for a moment. He turned back to the view port and folded his arms over his chest. "I loved someone here."

"Oh." Her voice held an uncertain note. "My mum?"

Bexley coughed. "Maybe, a little."

"But the person you're talking about isn't her?"

"Yeah." Bexley lifted his cap and scratched his head, "Doesn't matter. Person I loved isn't mine. I woke up and there was a whole relationship that I lost out on." He took a drag. "Maybe for the best, yeah?"

Kochanski nodded, "I have a friend… like you. Stasis pod accident was it? It's hard being time-impaired." She blushed suddenly, looking stricken. "Or do you prefer time-_displaced_?"

Bexley shrugged, laughing. The motion unsettled the kitten in his jumper. It meowed.

"What's that?" Kochanski glanced at him. "Contraband?"

"Maybe." Bexley reached inside his jumper to bring out the little cat.

"Oh, no. I'll have to take that from you." Kochanski reached for the kitten. He let her have it. She tsked over it. "You know this ship is completely over-run with cats. They got into the cargo decks. Holly doesn't have any sensors on those floors. Too expensive. And most of those decks are completely automated, almost impossible to access. They have the run of the place."

Bexley sniggered. "I suppose yer worried they're going to bite through a few wires and the Dwarf'll be flyin' backwards."

"Actually I'm more worried about what they're eating. Rats? Mice?" Kochanski shuddered then absently scratched the kitten behind its ears. "It seems like almost every vessel has an infestation of something, though." She brought the kitten up to look it in the eyes. "Part of the problem is that they're too cute. Three quarters of the staff won't even report them when they find them."

Bexley grinned at her. _She _looked cute.

She glanced back to find him staring at her. She bit her lip, "You look an awful lot like—"

"I know."

"Are you twins?"

He lit another smoke. "Tell me why yeh came back."

"Oh, I…" She closed her eyes. "I wanted to be closer to my mother and father, I think. They worked aboard Red Dwarf."

"Really?"

She nodded. "I wasn't raised by them. I was raised in virtual reality." She flicked her hair, stubbing out her cigarette. "Most people don't understand what it's like to come out of a pod."

Bexley grinned, shaking his head at her. She was superior and vulnerable all at once. "Yeh'd be surprised."

(ooo)

"Do you think this will work? Or will your idiot son turn me into hologrammatic confetti?" Rimmer snarked as Jim plugged Rimmer's projection unit into his workstation.

"The Voxels will give you the same body you had when your personality algorithm was recorded," Jim assured Rimmer, and adjusted his goggles.

Lister patted his son's head.

Jim pushed at Lister's hands. "Dad!" Just like a tetchy fourteen-year-old. Lister smiled. Jim flicked the switch.

Rimmer's image fluttered, then stabilized. Jim unplugged Rimmer's projection unit and closed his work station.

"That's it?" Rimmer asked.

"That's it." Jim nodded.

Rimmer passed his hologrammatic hand through a table. "That's it. You got me all excited over nothing."

"It will take awhile for the voxels to replicate and fill out your form. A few days, maybe less," Jim replied. "Then you'll be able to touch, feel, eat, just like a normal human." Jim pulled his goggles off. "Congratulations."

"Oh smeg off. I won't believe it till I'm able to see it with my own eyes."

Jim shrugged. Rimmer stalked off to the attic.

Lister rolled his eyes at Rimmer.

"That's amazing. What yeh created, Jim. Yer a real genius, yeh know that? I'm proud of yeh."

Jim looked down at his hands. "Who's my mum, dad?" he asked.

Lister started. "What?"

"I've been thinking about it. I don't know my mum." Jim pressed his hands together. "Who's my mum?"

Lister leaned against the kitchen counter. "Look Jim… that's a long story."

"I want to know."

"I didn't think—" Lister bit his lip. He hadn't thought Jim would ever ask. Why hadn't he thought that? He felt stupid. "Ask me later, okay? I promise to tell yeh."

(ooo)

Lister woke up.

Something had crashed in the kitchen.

He rubbed his eyes and had to force himself to his feet. He'd spent the whole night trying to figure out how to tell Jim who he was. Somehow he figured the boy would just never ask the obvious. Jim wouldn't take it as well as Bexley, he knew that. He doubted Bexley really took it that well. But Bexley hadn't ever confided in Lister. Probably just wanted to make a clean break of it and keep his life as separate from Lister's as he could.

But Jim? Sensitive, intuitive, caring Jim? It terrified Lister. He almost wished that pompous CAO from the Ganymede station was there to break the news for him.

Lister wandered into the kitchen. He yawned and picked up a bit of broken crockery. "Vlaad! Yer redecoratin' leaves a lot teh be desired!"

Lister felt eyes on him. He turned. Vlaad was sitting on top of the fridge, tail swishing in irritation. "Why're you up there?"

"I can feel!"

Arms wrapped around Lister from behind, a warm face was shoved into the crook of Lister's neck.

"Arn?" Lister grunted and turned around in the man's arms.

Rimmer looked frantic with pleasure--slick with sweat and completely naked.

Lister backed up a step, his breath catching. Naked. He'd seen Rimmer naked over the last few years, more then once—but it'd never seemed real. Not like this slick, glistening mad-man who looked like an apparition, but was as real as a gun-shot.

"Smeg," Lister whispered.

"It worked," Rimmer grinned into Lister's face. His pupils were dilated till the yellow-brown had been eaten away by black. He looked drugged. Insane.

"Come on, let's get you back to bed." Lister caught Rimmer's wrist and pulled him.

Rimmer gasped and refused to let himself be pulled.

He looked down at his hand. "You're touching me."

"So I am." Lister replied. "You should rest."

Rimmer grinned, manic.

Lister tried to pull him. He stayed rooted. Lister pulled harder.

Rimmer stepped forward quickly and Lister had to catch the kitchen counter to keep from falling. "Tch. What's this game—"

Without warning Rimmer was pressing into him, his hands running over Lister's neck and face, catching his jaw. And then he was kissing Lister.

He tasted human. Lister couldn't believe it. Rimmer tasted like grape jelly jam and maple syrup and under that, the pungent tang of unwashed mouth. Human. Like he'd never died.

Lister had to pull back to breath. Rimmer cupped the small of Lister's back and bodily lifted him and lowered him to the ground. The strength of the motion made Lister shiver. Rimmer felt like warm, pliant skin over six-ton hydraulics. It was inhuman.

"Arn—" Lister tried to protest. "We shouldn't. Not here. Jim could—"

Rimmer's weight pressed against Lister's chest. Lister couldn't talk any more and—as Rimmer's hand moved down his chest, over his hip, pinning him even more solidly to the floor as Rimmer's hips ground against him—silence became golden.

Lister nuzzled Rimmer's jaw. It was rough with stubble. He'd have to get used to shaving again.

"I love you," he whispered. Rimmer didn't reply. But he was hard and moving against Lister like an engine piston.

Lister tried to make space between them so he could pull of his sweat pants. Rimmer didn't seem to get it until Lister kicked his hips away.

Naked, Lister held Rimmer, friction-fed heat till it felt like they would meld together. Lister didn't think that was a bad idea, but Rimmer started to sputter and choke.

"What's wrong—"

"This!" The muscles of his arms flexed and shivered, as if he wanted to pull away and forward at the same time. But his hips continued to grind against Lister, moving them both towards the inevitable.

Just as Rimmer seemed fit to burst, he won—or lost—some internal battle and he stood, turning away from Lister and pressing his hands down on the kitchen counter.

Lister watched as Rimmer's whole body tensed, as he muttered something through clenched lips.

Lister stood, not sure if he should pull his pants back on. "What's wrong?" He slipped his hand over Rimmer's back.

Rimmer jerked out of Lister's grip, groaning. "Go away." His face was still screwed tight. "This is some sort of joke to you isn't it?"

"What? No." Lister stepped towards Rimmer, sliding his fingers against the man's arm. "I—"

"I've gone mad." Rimmer curled against the kitchen counter.

"I'm so tired of this." Lister rolled his eyes heavenward. "Can't you just—can't you just…" Lister couldn't finish the sentence. He stepped forward. "What's so smegging wrong?"

"Please. Stop." Rimmer hit his head against the counter. Over and over.

Lister bit his lip and caught Rimmer's shoulders. "Come on. Go to bed."

"Don't touch me!"

"Let's go."

"Don't touch me."

Lister pulled Rimmer up and walked him to the couch. It would be good enough for the night.

"Gay hippy scum." Rimmer muttered as Lister pushed him down and picked up a blanket.

Lister felt sick of Rimmer. "Get over it, yeh vicious bastard."

(ooo)

Jangles snorted and sidled sideways.

"Whoa!" Lister clutched his saddle horn to stay on. "Shh…" He patted his gelding's neck. Jangles _never_ startled. Much, anyway.

Lister urged Jangles into a trot, rounding the copse of trees towards his drive-way. The sound hit him as soon as Jangles clip-clopped past the trees. Whirring, muffled sirens.

Jangles sidestepped again. Lister tightened up the reign. Then he gave it slack and tapped Jangles' side with his heels. The gelding broke into a canter, bringing Lister's house quickly into view.

Two police transports edged into view. Lister stood in the stirrups, watching over Jangle's ears as four men in cobalt-blue uniforms escorted Rimmer out of his house. "Arnold!"

The police didn't stop. One held Rimmer's head down as he helped the hologram into the transport.

"What are you doing? Arn!"

Jangles jerked to a stop. Lister dismounted into a run. He caught the nearest policeman, pulling him around. "What's going on?"

"United Planets Property Services." The man barked, looking down at Lister. "Your hologram here… legally he belongs to his next of kin. His mum."

"Arn!" Lister pushed through the police, catching Rimmer before the transport door had closed. "What have yeh done?"

Rimmer didn't look up at him. "I don't need your projection unit anymore." Rimmer looked out the opposite side of the transport. "Mum's going to take me in."

"What?"

"I don't want to be here." Rimmer replied, his voice even.

"Why?" Lister grabbed for the transport, trying to keep himself upright.

"You have no right to me."

"I—"

"Look, we don't have all day." One of the police officers muscled in between Lister and Rimmer. "You have a problem with this? Take it up with the UPPS."

"I can't believe…" Lister was forced to step back. A police officer stood in front of him as two others stepped into Rimmer's transport and closed their doors. "I can't…"

Jangles stepped over to Lister, his chin a hair above Lister's shoulder. Absently, Lister caught Jangles' bridle and stroked his warm nose.

Rimmer's transport turned its force field buffeting up handfuls of gravel. Lister watched it bump over his rough driveway. He could still see Rimmer slumped in the back seat.

Lister pulled Jangles forward, shoving his foot in the stirrup and throwing his body up and over the saddle. He urged Jangles into a canter after the transport. Lister kissed and Jangles leapt into a gallop. Jangles cornered better then the transport and managed to catch up as it revved to full speed on the road.

"Arnold!"

Lister saw Rimmer through the transport window. He looked exhausted. Desperate. "Arnold!"

The man looked up. His eyes met Lister's. Resignation. That's what Lister saw. Tired, empty resignation. Like a man at the end of a futile and long-fought battle. A losing battle.

As the transport switched gears, Jangles fell behind and put on a burst of speed.

Lister pulled him up—galloping any further was too dangerous on the asphalt—and watched Rimmer's transport disappear over the curve of the hill.

(ooo)

"Is there any reason for this hologram to remain in your custody?" Lister's lawyer a small, thin man with nervous hands—John had recommended him—eyed Lister meaningfully.

Lister glanced up. Rimmer sat, head bowed, beside his mum. She was wearing a smart dress-suit and a pill box hat with a cute bit of lace fringe. And when she wasn't flirting with her lawyer, she'd been looking at Lister like he was a villain in the fifth act of a Shakespearean play.

"Your honour… Arnold and I—"

Rimmer winced, slumping even further into himself.

"He and I…" Lister trailed off. His lawyer nodded his head to encourage him. "When we were alive, I mean…"

Lister's lawyer cleared his throat.

"I mean…"

"Do you have anything at all to add to these proceedings, Mister Lister?" The Judge—head haloed by the traditional headdress, stacks of thick white curls—stared down at him.

Lister glanced back at Rimmer. Rimmer's face was in his hands. He was shaking.

"No. I…"

Lister's lawyer stepped up and filled in quickly. "Isn't it true that you and Arnold Rimmer engaged in a sexual relationship for two years prior to your departure from the Red Dwarf?"

Lister glanced back at Rimmer. His head had dropped down till it rested against the desk.

"Yes." Lister said finally.

"So, as Arnold's partner—"

"Your honour I won't be party to these slanderous accusations against my son." Rimmer's mum stood and pointed at Lister. Her features were as still and tight as stone. "This man wants to tear my family's good name to shr—"

"Sit down, Mrs. Rimmer." The Judge commanded.

"Your honor, I won't hear—"

"Sit—"

"This slander has to—"

"Sit_down_, Mrs. Rimmer. Don't try my patience."

Mrs. Rimmer's eyes narrowed; her only concession to emotion. "Yes, your honour." She sat down. Slowly.

"Continue, council." The Judge gestured to Lister's lawyer.

"Under the common-law act of—"

"They were roommates, your honour. Please!" Mrs. Rimmer had jumped to her feet again.

"Not if they were engaged in a sexual relationship, Mrs. Rimmer." Lister's lawyer half turned to address her.

The Judge slammed his gravel. "Council, you will direct your attention to the witness. Mrs. Rimmer, no more outbursts."

Lister's lawyer adjusted his jacket and continued. "Now. As Mister Rimmer's one, and _only_, romantic partner in his entire life—"

A low keening wail filled the court room. Lister's lawyer stopped. The Judge glanced around.

Lister closed his eyes.

"Is there something wrong, Mister Rimmer?" The Judge.

"Rimmer!" Rimmer's mum. "Be a bit more stoic!"

Lister opened his eyes. He watched Mrs. Rimmer swat her son with her purse. The keening stopped. She cocked an eyebrow at the Judge.

"Continue, council." The Judge motioned to Lister's lawyer.

"As Mister Rimmer's only romantic partner, the man he lived with in a sexual relationship for two years, you feel you qualify for sole custody of Mister Rimmer's post-mortem hologram."

"Yeah." Lister whispered.

"Please speak up, Mister Lister."

"Yes! Yes to all of it!"

"That is all, your honour." Lister's lawyer rebuttoned his jacket as he sat back down, a small smile on his lips.

Lister stared at his hands.

"Mrs. Rimmer? Your council?"

A pair of footsteps approached the bench. Lister glanced up. Mrs. Rimmer's fat, white bearded lawyer stared down his nose—and the long arc of his double-breasted pearl grey suit—at Lister. On his lapel was a pin. A golden clock-work spring.

"Mister Lister." He began, wheezing a bit at the edges. "As you know, Hopist Io does not recognize common-law relationships between men. The only reason this case wasn't dismissed as a spurious bit of nonsense is because it fell under Jupiterian law due to a_technicality_—"

"Council, relevance?"

"My apologies your honour. I was overcome, for a moment, with colonistic fervour." Mrs. Rimmer's lawyer chuckled then bowed to the Judge and turned to face Lister. "Is it not true that you have no record of your relationship? No gifts or letters exchanged? No witnesses among your friends or relatives? Anyone at all who was aware of it _as it was happening?_"

"That's not true!" Lister turned to the Judge. "I wrote him every week for five years. It'd be in his personal effects, all of it! He said he kept them in a safe deposit box."

The lawyer emanated smugness. "You mean the personal effects Mrs. Rimmer inherited from her late son?"

Lister turned and stared at Mrs. Rimmer. She shook her head at him, a hint of a smile on her dark-red lips.

"Mrs. Rimmer has stated that no such letters exist."

"She's lyin'! They do! I wrote him all the time! Every smeggin' week!" Lister charged to his feet, tears blurred his vision. "I loved him! I wanted him with me so bad—I thought I was havin' a heart attack some days… nothin' made that go away. Nothin'. For five years I waited for him. And finally he decided to come see me! He had his reservations and everythin'. He'd finally chosen!" Lister fell back into his seat, sobbing. "It's not fair! It's not!"

Mrs. Rimmer's lawyer ploughed on. "Mister Lister—"

"Give him a moment, council."

Lister rubbed his watering eyes and nose on his sleeve, trying to control his heaving. "It's not…"

"Mister Lister… There is no evidence at all that you had any sort of relationship with Arnold Rimmer. Much less a—" The lawyer's lip curled, "Much less a romantic one that could, by any stretch of the imagination, qualify as equivalent to marriage. So tell me, why should I, or anyone, believe you? You call the exquisite, god-fearing Mrs. Rimmer—" The lawyer exaggerated the syllables in 'exquisite', savouring each one. "A liar, yet the only liar I see in here is _you_."

"I'm not." Lister's voice was almost inaudible.

"Are you done, council?" The judge sounded less then pleased.

"Yes, your honour."

"Take your seat Mister Lister. Mister Rimmer, please approach the bench."

Lister left the witness box, moving listlessly towards his lawyer and his seat.

"Alright, Arnold Rimmer, I want you to answer one question." The Judge turned to look at Rimmer. "I know that you have no memory of the alleged relationship between you and Dave Lister due to Red Dwarf's rather archaic archive protocol, but please tell me if there is anything… anything _at all_, in his behaviour or yours that would suggest such a relationship existed?"

Lister watched Rimmer. He refused to look up or look at anything aside from his hands. Every molecule of Lister's being tensed for his answer.

"Your honour." Rimmer looked up at the judge. Even from fifteen feet away, Lister could see tears in his eyes. Rimmer glanced at his mother. Then at Lister. Another look of desperate confusion, longing and then resignation. Lister's stomach fell.

"No, your honour." Rimmer glanced back at his hands.

The Judge leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he looked like he'd aged. He leaned onto the front of his podium. "Approach the bench, Mister Lister."

Lister stood and walked over. He couldn't look at Rimmer. But he felt the man's presence against his skin like a electric guitar solo on a hypersonic frequency.

"I know there is more here then meets the eye. I'd lay odds—" He nodded at Lister, "that he's telling the truth. Unfortunately, I have to take into account the viability of the relationship _today_." He stared at Rimmer. "For whatever reason you seem unable to accept a relationship with this man, past, present or future. As a Ganymite I believe that love—any love—is too precious to be squandered. But that is your own decision and I have to respect it." The judge pointed his gravel at Mrs. Rimmer, "I'm granting custody of Mr. Rimmer to Mrs. Rimmer."

Mrs. Rimmer offered up a thin smile.

The turned to Lister. "As for you. I am truly sorry, but you can't pump water out of a dry well. It's best you stop trying."

(ooo)

Lister leaned up against the wall under the Jupiter court system crest. After a moment he felt a hand against his shoulder. He looked up. John.

"I watched the proceedings." He squeezed Lister's shoulder. "I'm sorry."

"I didn't notice you were there." Lister kicked at the institution grey carpet.

"You were pre-occupied."

"What do I do now?" Lister asked. "What?"

John's hand slipped off his shoulder.

"John!" High-heels clacked towards them.

Lister looked up. Mrs. Rimmer was trotting towards them. She stopped short in front of John. "What do you think you're doing?"

"Mother?" John said, stunned. "What? How—"

"Your_wife_told me to look out for you." Mrs. Rimmer pursed her lips. "She said you recommended a lawyer to _him_." She flicked her gloved hand at Lister. "How could you? Assist a man who wants to drag the Rimmer family name into the mud out of professional jealousy?"

"Professional jealousy?" John grabbed Lister's upper arm "What? _Dave_"

"He's not happy simply stealing the test pilot position you worked so hard for—imagine!"

"Look, mother, I happen to believe _Dave_. I would have testified for him if his lawyer hadn't told me it was useless."

"What nonsense." Mrs. Rimmer dismissed it all with a wave of her hand. "This is all absurd silliness." She scoffed. "You boys never had a clue."

"Really?" John said, his grip tightened on Lister's arm.

Ignoring his tone, Mrs. Rimmer pulled gum from her purse, unwrapped a piece and popped it in her mouth. After a beat she offered a piece to John and Lister. Lister shook his head; John looked like he'd been slapped. "You should go back to your wife, John." She said. "People are talking."

"So? Let them talk. I've done my duty."

"She's your _wife_." Mrs. Rimmer's eyes narrowed. "Your duty to her does not end."

"To be a high flier, to buy her a big house, to pay for her lifestyle _and_ to dote on her every minute of the day? No wonder she needed two men. Three if you count the pool boy."

Mrs. Rimmer scoffed. "Nonsense. No Mrs. Rimmer has ever cheated."

John looked fit to spit. Instead he took a deep breath. "Mother. My wife and I have our agreements. You can tell your friends whatever you like, but it's none of your business or theirs."

"Agreements? The nerve. I've told you to go back to your wife, and go back you will." Mrs. Rimmer leaned her head back, looking down her nose at the both of them.

Lister backed up a bit. John and his mother were staring each other down. They looked like a mongoose and a cobra, locked in a silent, unflinching contest of wills. John's cheek twitched. Mrs. Rimmer's eyebrow lifted.

Just as Lister felt John beginning to back down, the man exploded towards him, grabbed him up and, like something out of a noir drama, leaned him over and kissed him. He had nothing to do with his hands so he held onto John's shoulders.

"John Tobias Rimmer. Stop your silly stunting and go back to your wife." Mrs. Rimmer flicked her head and turned on her heel, unimpressed.

John leaned his head into Lister's shoulder. After a moment he exploded. "Gah! That woman."

(ooo)

Bexley leaned Kris Kochanski-Lister back and kissed her on the steps of the Ganymite Gnostarian Temple. The assembled crowd, black tuxedos paired with a confetti of different hued dresses—that was the wedding's colour scheme, black and whatever-looks-good-on-you—cheered, threw handfuls of bird-safe organic grice and parted as the bride and groom descended the stairs to the stretch ship-to-surface transport.

Lister clapped, watching his clone-son, the ever elusive Bexley and his son's wife, daughter of Kris Kochanski, the girl he once thought he'd marry. He'd always thought her daughter was a bit on the stick-up-her-butt side, too humourless for his taste, but he trusted Bexley. And the girl was fit, that was sure.

Kris Junior turned back to the crowd, pushed the little bits of curled hair by her temples behind her ears and threw the bouquet of GELF-rosanthimums.

Lister lost sight of them both in the ensuing riot over the bouquet, he shrugged, turned back up the stairs and walked to the top landing. From there he could see their transport depart for the nearest launch window. He saluted them and entered the Temple.

Custodial staff ran silent vacuums over the hard wood floor, picking up for the next scheduled ceremony. The vicar spoke to the organist, handing her music, his vestments rippling in the breeze from an open window.

"Hi, Dave."

A woman's voice. Lister turned. It was Kris Senior. The girl with the pin-ball smile. She offered him a smile. Not that one, though. "Hi." Lister smiled back at her. She'd married Todhunter, of all things. And then Todhunter's ship had disappeared after taking a ride on one of the new StarTransit™ routes.

"I just thought I'd pop in to see if I could help." She smiled again. The weight of sad companionship settled on them both. She was a widow. And Lister… well, Lister had lost out too.

"Naw. Everythin's under control." Lister nodded at the janitors.

"How have you been, Dave?" Kris senior asked. There was real concern there.

Lister shrugged. For various political reasons, the Rimmer custody trial had been quite public. "Could be better. Getting by." He wasn't going to lie to her.

"Bexley is wonderful," Kris said. "I know he'll make my daughter happy."

"He is," Lister agreed. Bexley _was_ wonderful. It was like seeing himself perfected. Everything fitting, everything working right, firing on all cylinders. Tough and disciplined and using _all_ his smarts. "I had such a crush on you on Red Dwarf," Lister offered.

"Me too."

"On yerself?"

"No. You know what I mean." She chuckled, chucking his shoulder.

"What have you been up too?"

"I'm doing well, still captaining one of the Pluto routes. Looks like Bexley's work is going to put me out of a job."

"Really? I didn't realize—"

"Oh no!" Kris giggled. She was messing with him. "I'm moving up to an Andromeda transit route. I'll be captaining a deep space vessel."

"That will be amazing for you," Lister promised. "It changes yeh… deep space."

"I've heard." Kris leaned forward to kiss Lister's cheek. "I've got to go. Keep in touch?" She turned to leave.

"Yeah." Lister watched her go, touching his cheek. If things hadn't gone the way they had…

He shook his head, trying to shake off the what-ifs…

"Dad?"

Lister started, then glanced over to Jim. He'd managed to sneak up without being heard. "Yeah?"

Jim looked at him—they were the same height now—a pained expression on his face.

Lister cut him off before he could say anything. "Let's go home, yeah?"

They walked together towards the Temple's parking lot.

"I wanted to tell you that I developed another technology."

Lister looked over at his son, distracted. "Yeah?"

"It's an… enhancement to the personality algorithm system. Actually, I like to think of it as a fear-vaccine." Jim grinned. "I've been working with a psychiatrist on it. I never thought voxels or the PIE engine could come together to cure people with phobic disorders." Jim paused, looking down at his hands. "I was thinking maybe it could help you."

"Help me… what?"

"Well, it takes away _fear_. Maybe it could help Arnold get over… his problem."

Lister grimaced. "Stop it."

"What?"

"Just. Stop it." He stared at Jim. "Not now."

"I just thought—" Jim stopped, glaring at the ground and sniffing.

Lister stared at him. _Do I look like _that _when I'm upset?_ Lister's throat closed off, he felt like he was choking. "Please. Stop it."

"I made a real mess of things, didn't I dad?" Jim laughed. Tears were falling.

_Just as soppy as me._ "No. It's not…" Lister tried to reach for his son… clone… but he couldn't move through the shame. And then it felt like his lips were moving of their own accord. "Yer me clone, Jim. I made the mess."

(ooo)

Bexley watched Jim—_James _now. His fellow clone sat behind an desk that reeked 'executive', a monster slab of cherry wood inset with tabs of glossy mahogany. It had been years since they'd seen each other. And James had changed. Still quiet. Still insular. But hard.

James finished tapping at his computer input screen. "I have personal stock available. You want one vial?"

Bexley nodded.

James looked up. "What's your story?"

Bexley half sat against the edge of James' desk. He could give grit for grit. "Tell me yers first."

James tilted his head. "There's nothing you can do."

"I didn't expect there was."

"What's to say? Mortality and fear are the two… human frailties mankind has always wanted to overcome. Voxels and the fear vaccine, are two of the greatest inventions ever. Endless, fearless life. Or a very close approximation thereof." James didn't smile. He didn't look satisfied or excited. He looked… sad and tired.

Bexley waved away James' words. "When did stop talking to yer father?"

"You mean _our original_?" James corrected.

"He disappeared off a Transit lane a year ago." Bexley said. "Don't know where he went."

"Ask the PIE. It talks to you two in a way it never did me." James looked churlish for a moment before his mask snapped shut.

"I did. Nothin' to say. Well. Nothin' worth saying." Some awful nonsense about pulling together a ship from the threads of time. And camphor wood chests. It'd been rather insistent on that last point. Bexley'd got the sense the PIE had a bit of a fixation on camphor wood chests.

"Do you want information about our original or do you want the vial?"

Bexley closed his eyes. "The vial."

"You aren't with the Space Corps anymore."

"I got into an accident. A… navi-comp blew up in me face."

"Can't lay track with a hologrammatic body? You could still work the existing lanes."

Bexley swallowed. "I resigned." The UPSC had crossed the line as soon as they got clout. Holograms were property—personality algorithms were property, the genetic code of your employees, property. They'd resurrected him as soon as he died—he was too valuable to keep dead. And then they'd just gone on with their cloning operation, getting more efficient with each generation. Using his genetics and his memories. Bexley's hands curled into fists.

"A hologram? Resign?" James scoffed. "That's not possible." He leaned forward, a smile quirking his lips. "So you're asking for more then the vaccine. You're asking for amnesty. Don't worry. My lawyers can wrap the UPSC in legal red tape so thick they'll—"

Bexley glanced up. "I don't care about that."

"Bex." James sighed. "What do you care about then?"

"Kris's mum vanished off a Transit route a while back. Kris was shattered." Bexley glanced up.

"Go on."

"Kris disappeared. I tracked her to Mimas." Every word raked against his throat as he spoke it. "She's… she's in Better then Life. She's a game-head."

"Ah. My competitors." James nodded. "Couldn't handle reality. There's a lot in her generation like that. Came out of virtual reality and want back in. Good market."

Bile rose in Bexley's throat. He let none of it show on his face.

James continued. "And you think the vaccine will get help her out? It could." James chuckled. "So you weren't enough for Kris? I suppose you being a indentured-hologram didn't help. She would have got that awful Notice of Deceasement. Told she should break all contact and just forget you."

Bexley stared at the edge of James' desk. He didn't dare move. He thought he should feel an extra measure of pissed off hearing cruelty coming out of his own face, but he'd long since stopped seeing James' face as his own.

"I wouldn't be so upset. None of us are, you know." James laughed again. "None of us are enough for each other. That's why voxels and fear-vaccines and game-heads exist."


	24. Voter Colonel

Red Dwarf Fanfic: Last Humans

Chapter 22: Voter Colonel

Summary: Lister and James spend quality time together.

Warnings: Language, torture, explicit sexual situations, violence, slash, Rimmer/Lister

Beta: Rack

Chapter Rating: MA(18 )

(ooo)

Chapter 22: Voter-Colonel

(ooo)

//Ship Serial No: Red Dwarf JMC66350

//Ship's Time: 15:35-06.13-002.343

//AI-Holly-Executive: UNAUTHORIZED RE-ROUTING DETECTED

//AI-Holly-Executive: UNREGISTERED AI DETECTED

//AI-Holly-Economy: WHAT'S UP DUDE?

//AI-Holly-Executive: RUNNING 'INTRUDER ELIMINATION'

//AI-Holly-Executive: 'INTRUDER ELIMINATION' FAILED

//AI-Holly-Executive: LOSS OF CONTROL SHIP FUNCTIONS A7803-T5690

//AI-Holly-Executive: BEGIN REPAIR PROTOCOL

//AI-Holly-Executive: SKUTTER RESPONSE NULL REPAIR PROTOCOL FAILED

//AI-Holly-Economy: GIT

"Me." Lister gripped a chair back to keep himself upright.

"You?" Kochanski caught his shoulder.

"That was me. I don't know how—He was the me I hallucinated when we were drugged by despair squid ink. I was a fascist dictator. He must have become real somehow—"

"Or he's a hologrammatic copy." Kochanski offered.

Lister sat, pressing his temples between his palms. "None of this makes sense." He threaded his hands together and forced his mind into crisis mode. "Okay. What do we know?"

"The StarTransit™ must have been a trap. I mean, a trap on _top_ of a trap on top of a trap," Kochanski said. "I bet that it brought us _to_ the Silo ship instead of taking us away."

"And we know Red Dwarf doesn't stand a chance against it. What does that leave us?"

Kochanski sat down beside him. "Nothing."

"Then I'll give myself up." Lister pulled Ace's light bee out of his smock pocket and pressed it into her hand.

Kochanski glanced at it. "What's that?"

"Ace's light bee," Lister said.

Kochanski grimaced. "I thought you were strip-searched. Where'd you hide it?"

Lister grinned. "In me stomach."

She looked like she wanted to drop it. Instead she slipped it into her trouser pocket and offered him a stern look. "You can't give yourself up. You don't know what they'll do to you—"

"Do I have a choice?" Lister asked, looking up at her.

"None at all," Thorton grinned from the lounge doorway, behind him a company of security officers stood, assault rifles in hand. "On order of Captain Hollister, you're being surrendered to the commanding officer of the Silo ship—"

"How? The skutters?" Lister stood.

"Holly EMPed every infested floor. The little buggers are inoperative."

"You murdering son of a—"

Kochanski stepped in between Lister and Thorton. "You do realize there will be no way of running the ship without them?"

"A minor sacrifice—"

"Minor?" Lister pushed past Kochanski, ready to twat Thorton.

"Uh-uh-uh." Thorton wagged his finger at him as his men raised their assault rifles. "Now. This James person has given us very specific directions. You are to be taken to the cargo bay. Along with your comatose friend. And you…" He nodded his head at his men then jerked it towards Kochanski. "Take her to the supplies closet and weld the damn door shut. She can keep that rogue mechanoid company."

(ooo)

Lister stood beside Rimmer's life pod. He shifted, rattling his cuffs. He wasn't afraid. He was _furious_. How could Hollister kill the skutters? They were his friends. They were people.

Thorton tapped him on the shoulder with his rifle, gesturing towards a figure walking closer.

Lister stared at himself. The man… or was it a Simulant? A hologram? His hair was long and fine and tied off his neck. His suit was pinstriped with a red kerchief in the pocket. He reeked of flash frozen anger. He offered a small nod to Thorton then stood square to Lister.

Lister squinted at him, looking for any clue that the man before him wasn't_him_. Aside from the straight hair, dress sense and air of pure unforgiving there was none. "Who are yeh?"

"I am you." Voter-Colonel smiled softly. "Although I've a bit different upbringing."

Lister stepped forward, only to be stopped by the butt of Thorton's rifle. "Are you a hologram? Or a clone—"

The Voter-colonel's laugh intensified. "No, _Dave_. You are a clone of _me_. Or rather, my brother." He turned to Thorton. "Thank you."

With the man's attention on Thorton, Lister braced against his shackles and swept a reverse roundhouse kick to the Colonel's face. Without turning, he caught Lister's ankle centimetres from his cheek, holding in a grip like a garbage press. He twisted the captured ankle and slammed Lister head first into the floor.

Lister curled into darkness.

(ooo)

Kochanski searched through the catheters and syringes for something that might help her pick the supplies closet lock.

Kryten watched her. "Ma'am, there's nothing. I've already scanned the contents of this closet—"

"Don't you have something better to do then to tell me—constantly—not to do what I'm doing?" Kochanski snapped.

"Actually, ma'am, right now I'm observing an extreme temperature shift in the door and I believe—"

The door handle sparked and blew off. Kochanski yelped, jumping out of the way. The door swung inwards.

A small figure sat at the threshold to the closet. As the smoke cleared, Cat spun into view behind the little skutter.

"Bob! You're alive!" Kochanski beamed as the service robot buzzed at them. She glanced at Cat. "And you've… er… emerged."

Cat flashed his canines at her. "Danger and Cat? Like style and tweed, just doesn't mix bud-babe."

Bob did a bit of back and forth on his tire tracks, then stopped and beeped.

Kryten interpreted. "Bob says a shuttle took off from the transport bay." Kryten frowned. "Rimmer and Lister have left Red Dwarf."

Kochanski's stomach sank. "We've got to get them back."

Bob continued with a series of hums.

"Bob says it may still be possible to control Red Dwarf systems through his command centre on floor thirteen, ma'am." Kryten's face brightened. "Ma'am. If we had control of Red Dwarf and the matter paddle—"

"We could rescue Dave and Arnold. And then get the smeg away from that Silo ship. Thank you Bob!" Kochanski gave Bob a bow.

Bob whistled.

"He says we would have to assist him in re-routing some circuitry. Five over-ride panels scattered across various floors are left." Kryten's features contorted. "Ma'am, what he's suggesting, it's very dangerous. If Thorton caught us—"

"Then he'll either kill us or lock us back up in here." Kochanski shrugged. "I'd rather do something then nothing and let Dave stay captured."

"Ma'am—"

Kochanski tilted her head at Kryten, frowning.

Kryten relented. "You're right of course, ma'am."

Kochanski stepped out of the closet. "Lead on, Bob."

(ooo)

Lister spat out a mouthful of stomach acid and tried to move his head. The Voter-Colonel no longer had him pinned, but he felt like the backseat rubber mats in a red-light district taxi. He pulled himself over on his side. His head hit something warm and relatively unyielding.

"Listy."

The voice was so welcome, it brought tears to Lister's eyes. "Arn." He said and levered himself up. As his eyes adjusted to the light, details faded in. Rimmer looked rough, like he'd been gone over with a meat tenderizer, but he was solid and alive. Somehow brought back from the brink of insanity. "Where?"

"We're on the Silo, apparently. I've already tried the door. Many times. We're stuck till we're released. The good news is that they fixed me up and gave me a dose of ephedrine. Probably so I don't tear you apart while we wait." Rimmer sniffed. "How gracious."

"Yeah but… that won't work for long, yeah?"

"No." Rimmer stared at his feet. "I've been doomed from the start."

"Doesn't that bother yeh?"

"Listy. No idea." Rimmer subsided into silence.

"I'm sorry, yeah?" Lister began, hugging his knees. "For startin' all this?"

Rimmer grunted and half turned.

"Look. I don't like this. There's this… wall, yeah? Between us." Lister waved his hands to indicate a barrier.

Rimmer didn't reply.

Lister ploughed on. "I just want yeh to know I'm sorry and I wish there wasn't this wall—"

"I was jealous, that's why I left my dimension in the Wildfire." Rimmer sighed. "Jealous of Kris. It was my real reason anyway."

"That wasn't you—"

"It was, I remember that now. And a long time ago I was afraid of what my family would think. It took me years to accept that you were the one that made me happy."

"I don't remember—"

"I could never get over how much you hurt me. I didn't want to be humiliated anymore by you. Making fun of me. Pretending to lov… like me. Killing my camphorwood chest."

"Okay, there I have traction. I'm sorry." Lister looked over at Rimmer, his heart open. "I wasn't enough, yeah? I thought yeh'd come around if I was chummy and caring and—"

Rimmer stiffened. "Listy. I don't want your pity. I don't want you to be 'chummy and caring' to me because you're a 'chummy and caring' person, I want you to be 'chummy and caring' because you like _me_."

"I do. Like you, I mean." Lister flicked his hand. "I mean I love you, yeah? I love yeh, Arnold Rimmer." He glanced at Rimmer, terrified of his response.

"Any minute they are going to walk through and kill us." Rimmer looked at the doorway.

"I've been in tighter scrapes." Lister chuckled, but he felt no humor.

"Not as tight as this." Rimmer seemed to count to himself. He exploded, grabbing Lister up and kissing him.

"Woah." Lister pulled back. "I'm not sure I want—"

Arn caught up with him again. He was sweating; his skin hot and wet, his lips cool. Dave warmed. How long had it been since his last shag? 6 years. 3 million. Arn pulled back this time. For a breath, or to deal with the consequences. Dave smiled. "I guess I am someone who wants this, yeah?"

Arn leaned his head against Dave's shoulder, eyes closed. "Only a few minutes."

"Only a few minutes what?" Dave asked.

"Of what I want." Arn replied.

What Arn said made Dave shiver. He pulled the other man close, kissing his jaw. Letting the solidness of Arn burn away his fear. "It's never enough. No amount of time."

(ooo)

"I don't agree with this, Miss Kochanski." Kryten's jelly lips compressed into a tight line. "We shouldn't split up—"

"I'm aware of that, Kryten," Kochanski replied as she peered into the circuitry behind the tertiary control override panel. Bob's three-fingered head was thrust deep inside. "But someone's got to go get it."

A knot of newly freed JMC personnel watched them with interest from a polite pace away. Kochanski had been terrified they'd be apprehended, but after racing through several floors of bemused crewpersons, she'd realized barely anyone had any idea what was going on, who the 'bad' guys were, or even thought to question a rag-tag group in prison smocks skulking around Red Dwarf access panels.

As long as they avoided Thorton and his men—Kochanski reasoned—they should be fine.

"I'm afraid that this—" Kryten held up a rubber Fred Flintstone mask, "—wouldn't fool a myopic dodo bird, Miss Kochanski."

Kochanski shrugged. "What can we do? You've got to sneak into the Research labs and sneaking requires a disguise."

"We could think of a _sane_ plan, ma'am."

"Sorry, Kryten, all out of sanity."

Kryten gave up and pulled the mask on his face. "How do I look?"

"Like Fred swallowed a mini-fridge, putty-face." Cat quipped.

"Go." Kochanski gave him the shove-off hand signal.

Kryten shambled down the corridor. He waved at the milling crew as he passed them. They offered a hesitant wave back.

"Good luck, Kryten!" Kochanski called after him.

Bob let out a long beep, followed by a few short trills. Kochanski shook her head. "That doesn't matter now. That Silo ship took Rimmer for a reason." At Bob's whistle, Kochanski pushed her flashlight deeper into the mess of wires. Bob paused in his soldering.

"This one, Bob?" Kochanski asked, pointing to a switch. Bob beeped. Kochanski flicked it. "So Rimmer may be safer there then here for now. At least from that ghastly JMC protocol. And Dave. I hope." Kochanski wiped her forehead. Bob offered a mournful thrum. "I know it's hard to work when they're in danger. Besides, what about Hollister? As long as he controls Red Dwarf, we rescue them, he sends them right back to evil-Lister."

Bob motioned for another length of wire, beeping again.

"Exactly. One thing at a time." Kochanski tripped one fuse then another as Bob worked his way deeper in. "We get control of Red Dwarf_first_. We get Dave and Rimmer out _second_. And we worry about outrunning the fastest space drive ever built _third_."

(ooo)

Dave would remember—sitting on the crest of a hill, watching over his crop, waiting for the camphorwood chests to ripen. He would remember the moment when he got what he wanted and realized he wanted it.

He would think about it very carefully. He would recognize it in everything. That moment had threaded itself into the fabric of the world around him.

In his mind's eye he lay with Arn—equal parts sweaty and bloody, confined and condemned to an unknown, but likely very bad fate. Everything gone still, very quiet, although they were both moving and breathing hard. Arn had smelled of a lot of things, most of them not very good, but that was okay. It was real. Dave had touched life's pulse. He'd realized he was apart of it all, the rage and joy of it all. Right in the vortex. He saw it, in exactly opposite the way he thought. No Fiji, no white dress and no Kristine. He saw it in Arn. And then he saw it in himself.

The worst scrape he'd ever been in and all he could feel was gratitude. It was so strong that everything had faded away till it was just him and Arn and his gratitude.

Lister would watch his crop and think, even if they didn't bloom, he'd had that moment.

(ooo)

Wherever Lister was, it was unrelentingly white. The glare obscured the room's proportions; a vein above his right eye started to pound. "What's going on?"

"Your about to be processed," said the Voter-Colonel—a dark silhouette against the white.

"What's yer name?"

"James." He fiddled with a series of blinking knobs and dials.

"James?" Lister shivered. "Jim?"

"If you insist." The Voter-colonel's—_James'_— shoulders stiffened. "My original called me that."

"Yeh mean who yeh were cloned from?"

"He was your son."

"So I'm your—?"

"Grandfather, I suppose."

"I thought you said I was a clone of you. Is this some sort of paradoxy time-travel thing?"

"Yes," James said simply, and then returned to his fiddling.

Lister stood, shakily and tried to move towards James.

Half way across the room, he barked his knee on something solid and invisible. He pressed his hands against it. It felt like a sheet of glass, but reflected nothing. Lister gave it an experimental pound with his fist. Electricity spidered through his body. He fell to his knees, his legs numb.

"Well, that's done then." James smiled. "I must dash."

"Wait!" Lister struggled to stand. "Why am I here?"

"Hmm…" James raised an eyebrow. He tapped the control panel and Lister felt another wave of weakness wash over him. Lister curled against the barrier, unable to keep himself upright.

"Well, I suppose I could show you a little context." James stepped closer to Lister. "The SBC did a documentary on me in twenty-five fifty. I'll dial it up for you."

The floor under Lister became a wheeling star-field. Letters zipped through it: SBC

Lister closed his eyes against the vertigo. When he opened them again, the floor had become a genial man in tweed on a bay-brown leather sofa. Lister shuddered. It felt like he was melting into the man's crotch.

"James A. Lister. Declared 'megalomaniacal cult leader to look out for' in a 2407 edition of the Universal Herald, he has proven to be a pivotal player on the human stage. But who is this man? Who is _James Lister_?"

A portrait of James, done in exaggerated grey scale, loomed and faded.

"Any biography of James Lister is incomplete without an understanding of his legal _father_, Dave Lister. Born sometime in 2309, Dave was found in a cardboard box underneath a pool table in a Liverpool pub. A working class family—the Listers—adopted Dave."

Shots of Lister's childhood followed. His adopted father walking the family's enormous boxer-rotweilier cross. His grandma smoking a cigar as she mopped a floor. "The young Dave Lister showed no signs of his future greatness."

The scene switched to an interview of Dave's grandma. "'E was a mite lazy, my Dave. Grubby. Not that he was stupid, no. Just wasn't motivated. Loved zero-G football, he did. Never thought he'd amount to more'n a another workin' man. Thought he'd marry Lasheeyana. E' was sweet on her. She's a hairdresser, yeah? Has a bit of a funny accent. Says "tink" instead of think. Nice girl. Big hair—"

"Hrm. I forgot how boring the first bit is." James turned a dial.

The sound stopped and the picture of Lister grandmother was replaced by a sequence of still images as James fast forwarded through. A space station. Fiji. A wedding. Several deep space shots. A college campus. Another space station.

"James had theorized that all fear, even in healthy individuals, was an illness that could be corrected. Soon others, at first just the naturally shy, timid or socially phobic, asked for his fear-vaccine. He was heralded a medical hero. His vaccine developed a cult following; individuals would fake phobic disorders just to be relieved of normal fear.

"As James built a financial empire on his inventions—Omega Solutions—the first reports of humans—inoculated with the fear-vaccine—going _singular_ and, in some cases, becoming mass murders came to the attention of the media.

"At first the connection was tenuous. Individuals drawn to the fear-vaccine were often unstable to begin with.

"Then came the high profile civil court-case, Shawnessy vs. Omega Solutions. Kent Shawnessy, diagnosed with a social phobia, was administered the fear-vaccine. Six months later he assaulted his mother with a rebar pipe and, while she was unconscious, ate part of her thigh.

"Omega Solutions lost the case. Political disapproval mounted against James' unorthodox theories. The fear-vaccine became a controlled substance."

An animated James reappeared, this time sporting a suit and tie, on a podium, shouting: 'Fear breeds tyranny! Fearlessness brings freedom!'

"Despite opposition, James continued to manufacture the fear-vaccine in secret in underground laboratories. Some estimates put the number of the fear-vaccinated in the millions or tens of millions.

"In twenty-three ninety-five, James and his increasingly radical followers founded a colony on Delta-Omega. The very location where his father disappear—"

James fast forwarded the vid, snorting. "Radical, my ass. We left because the UP charter of Human Rights didn't extend to holograms. Notice how they completely ignore the deadie politics." James stared at Lister. "How ironic. Now the only human thing left is holograms and last living human is just hardware." He pressed a button and the vid continued.

"During this time, the UPSC Agnoid project—intended to counter insurgency among the intergalactic colonials—ended in a bloody and decades-long Agnoid insurrection that took the lives of millions of colonials and threatened the very existence of human kind."

Arial footage of a battalion of humans marching on a resistance unit of five Agnoids played across the floor. In a matter of moments the human ranks had been decimated. The camera itself was hit by a bolt from an Agnoid weapon and spiralled into a crash landing. The last few frames of footage showed an Agnoid's face, contorted with rage, brandishing a machete and hacking at the camera lenses.

Lister jumped back and nearly fainted from the movement.

"Alpha-Omega—or "Tween"—was the only holdout against the Agnoid menace and it was James Lister who turned the tide."

Another image of James in military kit, leading a rag-tag militia army.

"Tens of thousands of his hologrammatic followers—products of his two greatest inventions, the voxel hologrammatic system and the fear-vaccine—formed a militia to repel the Agnoids from beleaguered colonies."

Another shot of humans facing off against Agnoids. This time the humans—hard light holograms, Lister assumed—ploughed into the Agnoids and tore them to shrapnel.

"After repelling the Agnoid forces, James retreated to solitude aboard his ship… the Silo, built by his fortune and manned by his followers.

"James did not inherit the ability to pilot a PIE from his father. He travelled the galactic transit lanes laid down by his brother Bexley, eons before. Until, one day, he disappeared from the transit lanes entirely.

"The enigmatic and quietly sinister genius simply vanished—"

"Alright. Enough." James— James_ Lister_— turned off the tape.

"That didn't explain anythin'!" Lister exploded.

James sighed. "I want a portion of your central nervous system. Not much. Just the part that allows you to move your body. Your brain will continue to be viable, but you will be paralyzed."

"Yeh want to kill me?" Lister had expected this. Although the brain thing _was_ a new twist. A vaguely familiar new twist.

"You see? Reactions like these are why I don't _say_ anything." James shook his head. "You'll still be _alive_. Just in a vat. Oh don't look at me like that. When I'm done with you I'll put your consciousness back in your brain if you want and I'm sure you'll eventually come across some do-gooder who will give you a body or some such. It seems _everyone_ has a spare lying about these days."

"What do you want with me brain?"

James sighed. "I want it because I cannot continue to pilot the PIE drive without it."

"No. I—" Lister shook his head. "I…"

"Holograms can't use a PIE. I require cloned replacements to use as a key. At least until the tissue dies. Do you understand now?"

"I'm a clone? That can't… What about Cat?"

"Cat?"

"He evolved from me cat Frankenstein in Red Dwarf's cargo hold—"

"What?" James considered. "Well that explains where Cat-GELFs came from. I never could figure out why anyone would engineer such a spectacularly useless life form."

Lister slumped. "I don't understand."

"It's very simple. You are the latest generation of Lister clones created specifically for harvest. That's all you are."

"Yeh set all this up…" Lister trailed off, at a loss for words.

"I inherited it. The United Planets Space Corps set it up. By the time I took it over, they had it down to a fine science. They'd built a replica of Red Dwarf to make the process as conceptually seamless as possible for the clone. They knew how much of the original Lister's memories they needed, how much of the brain they needed and how long a clone had to wander about and get a sense of himself before he could be harvested."

"So yeh've been usein' me brain to kill everythin' in the universe." It was more then feeling displaced, dispossessed, questioning his own identity--it was self-loathing. He was just an empty container for someone else's hatred, someone else's anger, someone else's violence… A clone with no existence of his own.

"Total slander, that." James replied calmly. "I inherited the Agnoid insurrection and I inherited the GELF war. They were both choices other people made, choices to create and choices to kill. I just decided not to question them."

"Why Rimmer?" Lister closed his eyes. He felt paralyzed.

"Because your original loved him. Loved him without any sense of perspective." James's shoulders slumped, defeated. "How do you clones always get me to talk? Now… If you'll excuse me, I've a friend of yours waiting. Two friends, really."

(ooo)

"Nelsen. Thank you for coming." James caught Ace's shoulder and ushered him into a dark room.

Rimmer lay curled in a courner, covered by a thin hospital gown. His breathing was shallow; his eyes were brushed with dark. He looked vulnerable and repulsive. Ace bit his cheek, swallowing his queasiness.

James pointed his psy-scan at Rimmer. "Our Ace in the hole, Nelsen. Our Ace in the hole."

At the sound of his name, Ace started. _I've been found out_.

James squeezed Ace's shoulder. He took a deep breath. "Yes. This is it. Now my father will have to negotiate."

Ace relaxed. He was still in the clear. "James?"

"He's Arnold Rimmer. The one my original magicked into being from nothing at all. Quite a trickster, my original. Still has a few surprises left in him."

Ace caught the door jam and seethed at Rimmer's unconscious form.

"What was that look for, hmm?" James grabbed Ace's upper arm and squeezed. "You needn't feel concerned." James gazed at Rimmer. "This man is a convenience to me, nothing more."

_Smeg_. "James—I…"

"Try to avoid another compromised position." James shook his head and hunched over his psy-scan. "He's gone Singular. He was red-lining an hour ago, so I thought… why not tip the scales? Give my original a little surprise. Ah. He's waking up."

"Do you think this is wise?" Ace asked.

"Two voxel holograms against an injured human being? I doubt it's particularly _unwise_."

"Right," Ace said.

James' hands moved over the psy-scan's controls. He hummed a short, flat tune as he poked and twisted the dials and studied the readout.

"Are you sure he's… physically ready? I mean, to be up and moving around. He came aboard torn to shreds." Rimmer waking up and outing Ace was just what Ace needed.

"Oh yes. We've patched him up, given him a few voxel extras. He should be fine." James knelt beside Rimmer.

Rimmer's breath quickened and became shallow. His eyes started to twitch.

Ace forced himself to relax into the unknown.

James helped Rimmer sit. He checked the man's pulse, then his eyes. "You look—"

The right upper-cut obviously took James by surprise. He staggered back. A human would have been unconscious.

Ace jumped between them, kicking Rimmer back to make space.

In Rimmer's eyes, Ace saw no recognition. Just empty fury.

Rimmer lunged, Ace deflected a jab, and, too late, realized it was a fake-out. Rimmer'd dropped low, caught his knees and slammed him down, then straddled his chest and started punching his head.

Ace ignored the blows. His voxel body was as tough as old leather. Rimmer might bruise him or cut him—for a moment—but he'd never get a knock-out. Ace trapped Rimmer's right leg with his own and rolled him over. Then he steam-rolled over Rimmer's resistance till he had him pinned from the side. Rimmer continued to thrash.

"Good God," Ace panted.

"Indeed." James replied. "Now that you're acquainted… You're in charge of him till my original takes the stage."

Ace caught Rimmer's arm to stop him from punching. "James?"

"Yes. Make sure he doesn't do anything stupid. Take him to your quarters. Keep him safe, alive. It's the least I can do for my loving original."

"How—"Ace pulled away from Rimmer and Rimmer managed to get a knee between them. "James. Are you sure?"

"He is… energetic," James admitted. "But I'm sure you can keep him under control."

"Right." Ace hauled Rimmer up to his feet, his arms wrapped around the man's chest. Rimmer managed to catch the fat part of his palm, under the thumb, between his teeth. Ace hissed, "I'll do my best."

"Good." James gave him a last, lingering look and left.

Ace extracted his hand from Rimmer's teeth. "Don't you ever get tired?"

Rimmer planted his heel against the arch of Ace's foot in response.

Ace nearly let go. Nearly. Instead he picked Rimmer up bodily and marched out into the corridor.

(ooo)

"That's it then?" Kochanski rubbed the grease from her face and only managed to smear it further. She, Cat and Kryten stood in Bob's deserted control centre—it looked like a typhoon had hit a Turkish bath. It was the last stop on their tour of select Red Dwarf access panels. Skutter corpses lay scattered among the colourful debris. Kochanski felt a pang seeing their lifeless little bodies.

She shut the access hatch and turned to the over-ride lever. "Ready?"

Bob beeped.

Kryten fretted, his Fred Flinstone mask in inexplicable shambles. "Ma'am, the probability of this working is—"

Kochanski pushed the lever. It slotted into place with a clang.

The lights flickered.

Bob cocked his claw.

"Holly?" Kochanski called out.

No response.

She looked at Holly's wrist watch. It was blank. Her stomach sank.

"Hello, dudes!"

Kochanski turned around. Holly beamed at them from the dilapidated screen beside the rubble of Bob's former throne.

"Did it work, Holly?" Kochanski asked.

"And how! I've got me memory-banks back! I can feel me higher functions come flooding back. Algebra. Calculus. Quantum Chemistry. Xeno-geophysics. Appreciation of fine cheeses. Yep, it's all here."

"What about that OG-AI? Are we going to have problems with her?" Kochanski rubbed the grease off her fingers with a bit of woven rag rug.

"We had a nice long discussion. Very romantic." Holly bobbed. "I persuaded her not to execute you lot."

"What a sweet-talker!" Cat yowled.

"Actually I ran 'love.exe'. After the Hally series disaster, the UPSC decided all spaceship class AIs should come with a fail-safe in the advent that they manifest symptoms of genocidal megalomania and start offin' the crew."

"That happens a lot then, does it?" Kochanski snorted.

"Depends." Holly blinked. "If a Holly series AI only offed crew six or seven times in three million years, I'd hardly call that a lot."

"Yes. Er." Kochanski paled.

Holly offered a slight grin. "I'm takin' the piss. It was just that once. Sorry. Twice. Holly 2.21 went a bit squirrelly and ate part of a crewman's leg. "

"Ate ? How…?" Kochanski caught herself. She refused to get sucked in. Further, that was. "Nevermind. Got the matter paddle ready, Kryten?"

"Yes, ma'am." Kryten brought it up. "What's the plan, Miss Kochanski?"

Kochanski touched one of the paddle handles. "We're going to teleport aboard the Silo, find Lister and Rimmer and teleport back."

"The Silo has millions of square miles of floor space, Ma'am. It would take years to search it all." Kryten paused. "Although Cat might be able to _smell_ them out."

"Nuh-uh. No way I'm going over there." Cat shook his head. "I like my lunch inside my body, my body inside my skin my skin inside my suit and none of that anywhere near homicidal Simulants or GELFs who don't share my philosophy."

"I meant at a distance, sir." Kryten corrected with an edge of irritation.

Cat gave him a disgusted look. "You want me to inhale the greasy steam that comes off Mr. Nostril 2000?"

"Cat, surely you can't prevent yourself from smelling him when he's actually next to you. What's the difference?" Kochanski asked.

"It is different for you stretch baboons. You can't help what goes into your noses. I can. And I'm not gonna let his underarm stink anywhere near the inside of anything of mine. Most definitely not my nostrils."

Kochanski felt her patience give way. "Cat—"

"Might I suggest something Gents… and _Lady,_" Holly offered.

"What?" Kochanski let her hand drop from the matter paddle.

"Well, as I see it, Lister and Rimmer are the only humans aboard the Silo. They'd have a unique chemical signature—"

"Of course!" Kryten jiggled. "Why didn't _I_ think of that? You'll use the mining scanners to locate them! It's a little clunky, but we should be able to calibrate the sensitivity to an appropriate level."

"Actually, I was going to suggest you use the Holly-Smelloscope." Holly grinned and bobbed. "I just invented it."

Kochanski rolled her eyes. "Thanks for the suggestion Holly, but I think we'll go with Kryten's idea. How long will it take to get the scanner array calibrated, Kryten?"

"I'm not sure, ma'am."

Holly piped in, "Eight to twelve hours, as the crow flies. Or dependin' on how many regressions we have to do."

(ooo)

Ace wrestled Rimmer through the door to Nelson's sitting room. Once through he gave Rimmer a shove that sent him flailing to the floor. "Voice lock!" Ace shouted. The door slid shut behind him.

Rimmer crouched against a wall, watching Ace like a feral dog. Ace propped his knee up against a chair and brushed his hand through his hair. His fingers twitched. More then anything he missed having a smoke. Nelsen had his… bad habits, but none of them involved tobacco.

"Is there anything human in there?" Ace asked.

Rimmer hunched closer to the wall, his gaze never leaving Ace. Blood dripped down his cheek from a cut just above his eye.

They'd reached an impasse. Ace walked over to his drinks cabinet and poured two whiskey sours. Ace turned with the glasses, his eyes sweeping the room. James had a paranoid streak a parsec wide, and every room on the Silo was bugged.

"It'll take some planning if you want to kill me." Ace said, setting the two drinks on his table. He sat down.

Rimmer stood and stepped over to the table.

"Have a drink. It'll make what I have to do easier." Ace sipped his whiskey.

Rimmer's fingertips touched the glass.

In one swift motion he smashed it against the table and picked up a shard. With it he lunged at Ace.

The glass was embedded in Ace's carotid before he could catch Rimmer. Ace slid an arm under Rimmer's armpit and leg and threw him, and Rimmer tried to roll out of it. Ace grabbed his chest from behind, and his thoughts went white-hot. He caught Rimmer in a four-quarters choke and the man was strangling.

Rimmer passed out.

It took every ounce of Ace's self-control to let go of the choke and sit back. He picked the glass out of his throat and threw it away. As he stood, holding his neck, blood seeping over his hand, his throat knitted back together under his fingers.

Ace glanced at the voxel and human blood smeared all over the floor and walls. He turned away from Rimmer, walking out the anger jangling inside him.

When it was safe to go back, Ace knelt beside Rimmer again and checked his pulse. It was strong. He checked for any bleeding. Just the cut over his eye and a deep cut in Rimmer's hand from the glass.

Ace sat back against a wall and wondered how he'd be able to manage. He had a niggling feeling that James was up to something. Having Nelsen take Rimmer was, well, Ace didn't quite know what it was. It seemed unusual, but then, the Silo had no holding cells fit to keep actual human beings for any length of time. They might throw him in with the broken-down holograms, but they'd probably tear him limb from limb.

Ace didn't know how Nelsen would play such a situation. Probably do unspeakable things to Rimmer. He squeezed his temples. The subterfuge was giving him a headache.

Rimmer moaned. He sat up slowly. "Where am I?"

"Nelsen's quarters," Ace replied. What luck. The choak had calmed him down.

Even so, Ace had seconds at best. He walked over to Rimmer.

Rimmer's brow wrinkled. "What? Wait. I remember—"

"Shut it. If you remember yourself again get to the Wildfire and rewire it so Dave can use it. Sorry, chum. There's no cure." Ace cracked the back of Rimmer's head against the wall. Rimmer slumped over. Ace fished a pen out of his pocket. Picking up Rimmer's hand, he wrote 'use an immunosuppressant' and let it fall.

Ace didn't have time to help Rimmer. Maybe things would come together for Rimmer, he'd have a bit of luck and someone else would rescue him. All Ace knew was that had to save Dave or try to. If Rimmer had been captured, odds were Dave was as well.

As Ace came to the door, it opened. Two of James' hologrammatic guards stood at the threshold. "James wants to see ya."

(ooo)

Kochanski glanced towards the computer screen Kryten had patched into via his groinal attachment. She wrinkled her nose. "Have you located them, Kryten?"

"Still only Rimmer's signal. Should I keep scanning till I find Lister as well, ma'am?" He turned, pulling the thick corrugated tube of plasma-wire that hooked the computer to his crotch taunt.

Kochanski closed her eyes. It was _awful_. And the fact they couldn't find Lister was upsetting _too_. "We'll rescue Rimmer," she decided. "Continue to scan for Lister once he's safe."

"Alright, ma'am. I've calibrated the mine scanner to focus on a sphere, radially defined by the maximum speed of travel times the scan latency and centred at his current location. If we need updated information about his whereabouts that should do it. And it'll upload the data direct to remote Holly." Kryten brought up Holly's wrist consol.

"And if you understood all that, you're light years ahead of me." Holly bobbed on his screen.

Kryten picked up a second wrist consol and offered it to Kochanski. "I want you to keep this so we can keep in contact if we get separated."

Kochanski fastened it around her wrist. "Let's move out." She pulled the strap of her JMC prisoner issue assault rifle over her head and grabbed the matter paddle.

"Ready, Miss Kochanski?" Kryten waited for Kochanski's nod, then tapped the matter paddle.

The laboratory around them disappeared, replaced with private quarters. They might as well have walked into an officer's suite on the Red Dwarf.

"Are we on the Silo?" Kochanski coughed. "Why do I taste bulk head?" she asked, mouthing the aluminum-irony taste in her mouth.

Kryten looked at the matter panel. "Oh… Oh my." He said, jiggling.

"What?"

"Nothing."

Kochanski coughed again and nearly cried at the pain. She brought something up and spat it out. _Metal filings_. And blood. She glared at Kryten. "Wha' happen'd?" she gasped.

"Er. A slight flux, ma'am." Kryten said. "We materialized in a bulkhead for approximately a billionth of a second."

Kochanski followed the fillings with incomprehensible—even to her—swearing.

Kryten turned away from her glare, glancing around.

Kryten brought up the psy-scan. "He should be within ten feet of here—Oh! There, ma'am." Kryten pointed to an unconscious lump on the bed.

"I… ull… Cover th' door. You ge' him." Kochanski nodded at the bed and brought up her automatic rifle.

"Right, ma'am." Kryten waddled over to the bed—rattling like a broken mouse-trap. "Looks like he's had a hit to the head. He has a concussion." Kryten hauled over to Kochanski and heaved him up. "We'll have to pin him between us so we can prop his hand up on the paddle, ma'am."

Kochanski slipped under Rimmer's arm. Kryten slid the man's hand against a paddle handle.

"Ready?"

Kochanski swallowed—tasting metal. "Is this paddle going to kill us?"

"Oh, no!" Kryten smiled reassuringly.

"Kryten. We almost ended up entombed in the bulkhead. Does that usually happen?"

Kryten considered, counting mentally. "Ma'am. I always corrected it before the error can do any… extensive damage."

"Extensive damage? That suggests, Kryten, that it did do damage." Kochanski folded her arms.

Kryten's carapace jerked up and down. He was forcing levity. Kochanski narrowed her eyes.

Kryten continued. "Miss Kochanski. Aside from the occasional difficulty with high-powered magnets and metal detectors, Dave and Cat have experienced no ill-effects."

"How many times did you and Dave use it?"

"One hundred and forty-five times, Ma'am."

"And, approximately, how many times did you end up in a bulkhead?"

"One hundred and sixty three times."

"That's an additional eighteen times, Kryten. What—"

"Ma'am, as entertaining as this conversation is, I suggest we go before we are found and killed unspeakably."

"Right." Kochanski sighed and placed her hand on the paddle. What was one more near-death experience?

(ooo)

"James." Ace entered the Silo's observation deck main floor. It was, for all intents and purposes, a sitting room: leather chairs, Persian rug, cabinet full of vintage liquors, a wet bar and books—the old-fashioned kind with paper pages—in two huge cabinets. Above them arced a dome, looking out onto the star field. The whole effect was Masterpiece Theatre meets 2001: A Space Odyssey. Every time Ace came up, he expected James to present a reading of "I, Claudius" set to "The Blue Danube."

James held up a hand for silence without turning around. He watched the stars then extended out a hand and pantomimed pinching them out, one by one. He turned to Ace, "Nelsen. How is our guest?"

"I had to sedate him."

"I expected as much." James turned back to the view screen, his finger tracing the space between two stars. "I've begun the preparations."

"How soon?"

James poured himself a pint, not looking at Ace. "Once the clone parts are installed and I can activate my PIE it will take no time at all."

"And then what happens?"

"We negotiate," James continued, his back to Ace. "There'll be no more indirect tweaks here and there using the Wildfire. I'll free all dimensions into infinite silence. Using his PIE."

Ace's hands twitched. He could kill the man _now_. He had killed him—so many times—and ended it all. He let his hands drop. He knew where that path led.

He raised his glass to the screen. "To new beginnings and old friends…" He turned back, another knowing look in his eyes. "Eh, Ace?"


	25. Ace

-1

Red Dwarf Fanfic: Last Humans

Chapter 23: Ace

Summary(flashback): Ace discovers who is responsible for the destruction of countless dimensions.

Warnings: Language, torture, violence, slash, Ace/Bexley

Beta: Rack

Chapter Rating: MA(18 )

(ooo)

Chapter 23: Ace

(ooo)

//Ship Serial No: Red Dwarf JMC66350

//Ship's Time: 15:35-06.13-002.343

//AI-Holly-Executive: UNAUTHORIZED RE-ROUTING DETECTED

//AI-Holly-Executive: UNREGISTERED AI DETECTED

//AI-Holly-Economy: WHAT'S UP DUDE?

//AI-Holly-Executive: RUNNING 'INTRUDER ELIMINATION'

//AI-Holly-Executive: 'INTRUDER ELIMINATION' FAILED

//AI-Holly-Executive: LOSS OF CONTROL SHIP FUNCTIONS A7803-T5690

//AI-Holly-Executive: BEGIN REPAIR PROTOCOL

//AI-Holly-Executive: SKUTTER RESPONSE NULL REPAIR PROTOCOL FAILED

//AI-Holly-Economy: GIT

"Smeg!" Ace slammed his fist into the Wildfire console. The impact dented metal; his projection buzzed. He sucked on his injured knuckles. "We lost them." He disengaged the time drive—upgraded during a visit to a dimension like his own, but with an entirely different Spanners and an entirely different interpretation of the Wildfire technology. Instead of jumping dimensions, they jumped time. The drive fizzed and spat. He swore. It just couldn't keep up. "What the hell did he just do?"

"I'm not sure Ace." The Wildfire replied, her voice distracted. "I think he somehow routed his time drive through a dimension engine and jumped space _and _time."

"Do you think he used a PIE drive?" Ace asked.

"I don't know anything about it. I don't even know its emissions profile."

"I'd like to know that myself, deep and delish. Make trailing my doppelganger a lot easier." Ace glanced at the bit of black metal—the PIE— rattling against the Wildfire dash. He still hadn't figured out how to interface it with the Wildfire itself.

Ace slipped his utility knife out of his flight jacket pocket and slid out the screwdriver. He unscrewed the cockpit's main access panel; it was partially unsealed to accommodate the patched in time drive. Fishing out several wires, he cut them with his knife.

"What are you doing, Ace?"

"What he did." Ace mumbled. He had the insulated part of a one in his mouth as he twisted two others together. "I'm rerouting my time drive through my dimension drive."

"You've never done that before. It sounds dangerous--"

"I'm sure it is. But I've got to find this other me. Figure out what he's about." Ace glanced up, opened his breaker box panel and replaced a fuse with a length of conductive metal. He closed it and settled for a second. He stared at his hands. What he was about to do… it would probably kill him. He took a deep breath. "It's time for another heel-toe skip."

"You could die, Ace—"

"You say that every time, old girl." He smiled. "And I never do."

"The electro-magnetic storms—"

"Only ever given me a headache," Ace lied.

"But Ace, this will be even worse. Electromagnetic storms and time distortions. You'll be turned inside out."

"Then I better go before I loose my nerve. Keep your eyes open for any sign of that _other_ Wildfire's trail." He opened the throttle.

The instant he broke the dimension's surface tension he felt like his body'd been put on backwards and inside out—he was just a gibbering, pumping mass of insanity. Images flashed outside the Wildfire cockpit—a field full of wood chests marching, their lids opening and closing in menacing unison—he tried to close his eyes, but his eyelids were on upside-down out and his eyes opened to another universe so dense even his thoughts were squished flat. It took him a millennia just to form a single thought. _I need a drink. _

The Wildfire interrupted, snapping him back into some sort of sense. "We're locked."

Ace pushed the throttle down. The nose lurched up. "Ace!" the computer warned. He pulled back and the Wildfire angled down.

Breaking the surface snapped everything back in place. The space outside resolved itself into order.

There was a star-field and then a planet—beige with a streak of red light arcing over its equator.

"A ring? That's odd."

"It's man-made," Wildfire explained. "Each one of those lights is a space courier tube."

"That is a lot of letters."

"Not letters, Ace. Listen." The sound of static filled the cockpit, faded and became a voice.

"…Michael Briggs. I was born July twenty-first, twenty two ninety one. I died Twenty-four oh four. I had three children. I'm buried…"

"…Amy Shawnessy. Twenty three eighteen to twenty three seventy-six…"

"…Mark Dempas. Husband to Elaine Dempas. Father to an orphaned son. Twenty-two eighty five to Twenty-three oh nine…"

Ace turned off the sound and stared at the desert surface of a planet. Here and there he could see a web of light—cities. "What is this place?"

A flash of light caught Ace's eye. Against the planet's horizon orbited a craft—shaped like a sickle the size of a small moon.

The Wildfire spoke up. "There's a craft—"

"Don't hail it," Ace cut her off. "I don't think they want to make friends."

"Ace. The PIE, it's responding to something on the planet surface."

"Yeah? Let's go down for a look."

(ooo)

Ace skid to a stop at the base of the embankment in a glittering avalanche of garbage. Two Agnoid carcasses had been hoisted up on spikes. They smoked in the hot sun, stinking like burnt cat gut.

He walked between them towards a shack slumped against a canyon wall made of crushed steel bulkheads. Beside it was an elaborate machine, part oil derrick, part distiller.

Inside the breast pocket of his gold flight suit, the bit of another dimension's PIE technology warmed and vibrated.

He leaned through the shack's doorway, pushing away the leather apron serving as a door. Inside was dank, mouldy. A small cot with a mattress thin as a pencil line. A clapboard desk and steel wire spool coffee table. A pot of mysterious black liquid smoked on a radioactive engine coil—a stove of sorts. Not for the first time Ace thanked his maker he was hard-light.

Air shifted beside him. He heard a footfall, then a trigger cocking. He lifted his hands without turning. "I come in peace."

"Who are yeh?" The voice was identical to Dave's. A young Dave's.

"My name is Ace."

"Who told yeh where to find me?"

The business end of a gun—a shotgun—pressed against Ace's back. It'd be hard-light calibre, Ace knew. It'd blow a hole in him he could use to portage a canoe by himself. He might not have the battery-power to heal that. Ace chose his words carefully.

"Dave Lister. Your father, I believe. He gave me this—" Ace fished out the PIE. "You recognize it?"

The weight pressing between his shoulder blades disappeared. Ace relaxed a hair and turned, a wry smile on his lips. It dropped away the instant he saw Bexley. The man was _identical_ to Lister. Identical. "You're—"

"What of it?" Bexley stepped past Ace into his shack, shoving his shotgun on a rack made from a hacked up steel sheet punctured with lengths of rebar pipe. He sat on the bed and poured himself a cup of thick, ugly liquid. "Me name's Bexley. Sorry about that." He gestured towards the shotgun on the rack. "There's so many of yeh. I got to be careful that yer the right one. Tell me where yeh came from. Just to be sure."

Ace hitched his foot up on Bexley's coffee table and leaned onto his knee. He grinned. This was the part he liked. "I'm a test pilot in the Space Core. At least in my dimension. In this dimension I'm a weasly little coward who's about as useful as size thirty tights in a ballerina school. Anyway, I tested a pretty tin filly called the Wildfire—took her on a gallop right into your dimension. That was a spell ago. I had a body then. A real one, not hard-light." Ace waved at Bexley's pot of goo. "Could you give me a cuppa? I'm parched."

Silent, Bexley poured Ace a tin can's worth.

Ace gave it a sip and nearly spit it out. He gagged it down before it could adhere to the roof of his mouth. It tasted like nettles and booze, stinging his nostrils and scraping his throat. "What is that?"

"Voxels," Bexley explained.

"Ah." Ace took another sip. "What are voxels?"

Bexley stirred his pot. "Cellular nanobots. Far less crude then the typical hard light knock-off. No offence." Bexley picked up a hunting knife. With a flick he sliced open his wrist and pressed back the skin. Blood pooled around the edge and dripped onto the floor. "Skin, tendons, muscle fibers, organs, bones. All there, just like a regular human." He stabbed part of the knife blade into his coffee table. It quivered. "If I cut yeh, I'd get hard-light static."

Ace swallowed. "Did anyone ever tell you that you are a charming conversationalist?"

"Not lately." Bexley watched his wound knit back together till nothing was left but a smear of dried blood. He glanced up. "We'd best be getting to it, yeah? Lots of work to do. The dimensions are dying and you want to save them."

"How did you know?" Ace glanced up, startled.

"It's all very familiar." Bexley grinned.

"You've met me before." Ace shook his head, smiling ruefully. "Seems to be a theme."

Bexley pulled his knife out of the table and sheathed it. "Have yeh had a run in with the Omega Group? James?"

"Don't know who they are. Or him." Ace took another swallow of Bexley's coffee. "Some other version of me is using _my_ ship to destroy dimensions. I've come across the Wildfire's trail in these dying dimensions. I followed the freshest trail I could find. It brought me here. There was a ship in orbit—"

"That's the Silo."

"Silo, huh? A cargo ship?"

Bexley waved his hand. "The Silo—and the Omega Group—is behind your collapsing dimensions." Bexley leaned forward. "Now you tell me. What is it to you?"

Ace leaned back, laughing. "Steady on, chum. I guess I've started to feel a bit… protective towards the dimensions. I've travelled them enough."

Bexley stared at Ace. "Good. Yer the right one. For now." Bexley stood. "So yeh want me to help you save the universe."

"If it isn't too much trouble," Ace replied with a wry grin.

Bexley dropped his cup on the table and stepped to his door, waving Ace to follow. "Let's go."

Ace jumped up.

"We infiltrate the Silo—there's a regular surface-to-ship shuttle in Company Town—we'll find out about yer doppelganger. And we'll find out where Red Dwarf is. Yeh got to go back in time and destroy her."

"Back? What?" Ace stared at him.

"That's what yeh did." Bexley replied. "That's why the Silo's still there." Bexley pointed at a light on the horizon—moving too fast to be a star. "After two hundred years it's still there. We infiltrate the Silo, get the information we need, and you go back and destroy Red Dwarf to stop James' clonin' operation."

"Okay." Ace stopped. "Maybe a bit more detail?"

Bexley glanced back. "Best yeh not know the details." He rolled a rock over beside the entrance to his shed. On the underside was a cryptic circuitry diagram, chipped into the sandstone. "Gimme yer PIE." Bexley crouched beside the rock.

Ace handed the bit of black over to him.

"I can look like part of the crew. All I needed was another piece of PIE to get it started. Where's your ship?"

Ace pointed to the top of the ravine he'd scaled down. "She's over that cliff edge."

Bexley glanced at the spot. "I'll overhaul her engine, too."

Hydraulics discharged and Ace turned to look. The oil derrick he'd seen earlier spewed thick glop into a barrel. "What are you mining, Bexley?" Ace asked, queasy.

"A long time ago the human race stopped being flesh and blood and became voxel," Bexley began. "Planet's full of voxel bodies. Billions. Trillions. It's a mass grave. When they first started dumpin' off voxel corpses here they used those orbiting courier tubes as grave mark—"

Ace covered his mouth with his hand and held up the other to stop Bexley from speaking. "No more."

Something moved in the corner of Ace's eye. He turned, his thumb unlatching his gun's holster. A black shape—covered in bits of metal scrap—shambled down the ravine edge.

"Tch." Bexley said, glancing up. "Took yeh long enough!"

"Sorry, old chum." Replied a cheerful voice. Hands appeared from the black shape and moved to throw back a hood.

Ace took his hand off his gun and straightened. It was himself.

The other Ace trotted up, grinning.

"Ace, meet yerself from the future." Bexley muttered around the screwdriver he held in his mouth as he examined the PIE and the circuit diagram.

"Hi." Ace said, feeling queer as he extended his hand. "Nice to meet… me."

"Likewise." Future Ace's grin redoubled.

Ace warmed despite the curious feeling. "Isn't there some sort of cosmic law against this?" Ace turned to Bexley.

"Naw." Bexley shrugged. "We thought there was, but there isn't any more. It got repealed."

Future Ace glanced at Bexley. His grin notching up to super-nova intensity. "Shall we start the Voxel-T seeding process?"

"Yeh know were the cot is. Don't make too much noise, I'm tryin' to concentrate."

(ooo)

"It's difficult to get used to this." Ace wiped sweat off his temple and rubbed it off on his trousers. All the things he pissed, bled and oozed—it was like being alive again. Very much like. Hassle and all. He glanced up at Bexley—who looked like one of James' cultist crew— balanced over the sink and running his hands over the bathroom ceiling. They were at the most inconspicuous data-line access port on the Silo – a single berth bathroom on the administration level.

"Yeah?" Bexley slipped a screwdriver into a thin gap between wall panel and access port cover. He popped the cover open and set it on the counter. "Not much choice. Yer previous hard light system left yeh too vulnerable. One direct hit to yer bee and you're dead."

"I know." Ace replied. "I just thought I left all the inconveniences of being alive behind. Shaving, bathrooms, eating… the wet spot."

Bexley pulled out a length of wire and opened his snips. "Your skin has twice the tensile strength of a flack jacket—the only thing that can penetrate it past the hypodermis is voxel-calibre. Voxel-calibre would have vaporized you before."

"You're all business." Ace leaned up against the wall opposite Bexley. Bexley didn't look the same—not at all in his disguise—but he still moved and acted like Ace's Spanners. A hard and grim version, perhaps. "Try to find information on why the Wildfire's helping these bastards."

Bexley twisted and capped the wire to the portable terminal he'd rigged from Wildfire parts. He crouched over it and began to tap in commands. "Hmn."

Ace stepped over. "What?"

"I've just come across the flight deck manifest. A ship called 'Wildfire' is docked."

Ace craned his neck to catch sight of the terminal's output window. "Was she captured?"

Bexley shook his head. "This isn't the ship we left on the surface. Look. There's _another_ Ace Rimmer registered in the controlled-persons list."

"Must be the answer." Ace stared at the screen. "Why Wildfire's been crisscrossing the dimensions… a doppelganger."

"They're going to kill him."

"What?" Ace tried to decipher the scrolling code. "An execution?" He didn't know how to feel. If it was the _him_ that had caused the deaths of countless dimensions… but what if it wasn't?

"His metrics. Look. And then look at his assignment. _Decoy_? He'll be dead within a week."

Ace turned away from the screen. "That isn't me. And it isn't the Ace that's caused the dimensional holocaust either. That man is a complete sad sack." Ace leaned his arm up against the wall. Dread trickled through him. The only person capable of the kind of dimensional manoeuvring he'd witnessed was _him_. He hadn't come across another Rimmer who was Ace. He'd come across a few he could _teach_. Ace closed his eyes. "It's Arnold Rimmer."

"Yeah?" Bexley said. "What's he doin' here?"

"Was Red Dwarf captured?"

Bexley grimaced. "Give me some credit, yeah? I woulda checked that out _first_. Says the Wildfire docked without incident. Is he part of the crew or somethin'?"

"He's alone. Must have surrendered. How'd he get aboard the Wildfire?"

"I don't know." Bexley's fingers hesitated over the keys. "We can't do anythin'. Too risky."

Ace thumped his head against the wall. "Fuck. I need a smoke."

"Our objective was to—"

"Look. As much as I hate that greasy little weasel, I can't let him _die_. Call up his file."

"I can't start changin' stuff. It'll be a red flag—"

"No choice, chum. Change his assignment."

"To what? Look, he isn't equipped to be anything _but_ a decoy. If I change his assignment…" Bexley turned back to the screen. "You're right. They'll have to upgrade his metrics. It'll give him a fighting chance."

Something about the set-up, the situation, made Ace nervous. It felt like he was walking into… fate?

"There. Done." Bexley shook his head. "The data on Red Dwarf is encrypted, it'll take time to break the code." He tapped in a last command. He glanced at Ace. "This could get painful."

"What?"

"I can't do it to meself, because I didn't." Bexley looked up at Ace.

"Right. Well, that's fine. What do I do?"

Bexley jumped down from the counter, trailing a length of wire. "Roll yer shirt up a bit, yeah? Just up above your belly-button."

Ace did as instructed and Bexley bowed down to inspect his stomach. Ace couldn't help the blush that crept over his features as Bexley prodded the area below his navel. "Yeah." Bexley stood, his hand driving into Ace's belly as he went.

Pain slid into Ace's chest. He ground his teeth and half fell against Bexley's shoulder. "Wha…" Ace glanced down. The end of the wire in Bexley's hand was now embedded in his stomach.

"Sorry." Bexley said. "I thought it'd be easier without a warnin'." Bexley grabbed his chest, holding him tight. "Sorry." He repeated.

Ace closed his eyes. Something connected with the bee deeply embedded inside him. It clicked in place and a stream of information flowed through. Locations, dates, _history_.

"Didn't even ask me… to dinner first." Ace pressed his face into Bexley's shoulder. "Just right to the… interfacing."

Ace swallowed as a dark lump of _something_ slid through his connection with the Silo and took up residence in his bee. It stuck there, sullen and silent.

Bexley wrenched the interface out and Ace pitched forward. Caught off balance, Bexley slipped to his knees, still clutching Ace. "You need this information."

Ace nodded. Bexley was sweating. The sweat had glued Ace's cheek to Bexley's throat. Ace's head spun. He sat back, unsteady. Bexley kept his hands on Ace's shoulders, looking at him with the same warm brown eyes Ace remembered from many other dimensions.

Stupid with the Silo's knowledge, Ace grabbed Bexley's neck and pulled him closer, kissing him. Bexley's lips were dry and cracked; Ace slid his tongue over--pricked by the broken skin--and into the warmth beyond.

Bexley jerked away, rubbing his mouth. Without saying anything he stood. He stopped for a long moment, then picked up his utility knife and hammered the access panel back in place. "I married Kristine Kochanski." He muttered. "It's not anythin' I'm interested in anymore."

Ace used the counter to pull himself up. He watched Bexley clean up all trace of their activities in silence.

The door behind him slid open with a hiss. The hairs on Ace's neck stood on end. He didn't turn. Black suited Security forces stared at him through the mirror. Ace smiled. "Hi Gents. I suppose when you gotta go, you gotta go—"

One of the security men caught Ace and wrenched him out. "Yer under arrest for accessin' the Silo mainframe." Another soldier muscled Bexley out of the room. The one holding Ace nodded at Bexley. "He's impersonatin' crew."

The second soldier patted down Bexley's back then shoved his hand up his shirt, dug under voxel morph chip set—implanted at the base of Bexley's spine—and yanked it out in a spray of blood.

Bexley screamed, his voxel disguise splintered away. He collapsed, unconscious. With a grunt the soldier threw Bexley over his shoulder.

"No!" Ace yanked free and ran towards Bexley. Something cracked into the back of his skull, sending him stumbling. He grabbed his head and gagged.

The first soldier grabbed Ace's arm and twisted it behind his back. Ace's head rolled back as he was pushed behind the hologram carrying Bexley. He watched the corridors, the soldiers as they swum in and out of awareness. He waited for his moment—fear and anger coiling inside him—fighting dizziness with every step.

The monotony of the grey corridors was hypnotic. After a while his vision faded into black. His body did not stop walking—his mind shifted.

(ooo)

Ace was lifted back into awareness by a sharp lurch. He'd lost consciousness somewhere between being beaten by a Simulant and having his voxel body cut into and his bee probed with electrodes. He'd come within a single nanite from spilling.

He was still in a chair, but no longer strapped down. His face stung. A Simulant guard—bent over till he was eye-height—lowered his hand, mid slap.

The room was well lit and dominated by a desk. A woman sat behind it, regarding the Simulant and Ace with mild interest. She wore a power suit and her hair was wound in a tight grey bun.

"Arnold Rimmer—"

"Ace. Everyone… calls me Ace."

"Not without some irony, I suspect."

Ace stared at her, trying to work his mind around what she was implying.

"Your metrics, dear." She tapped her jaw with one manicured finger. "Appalling. Regardless, your ship has been most forthcoming with information—"

"Wildfire would never betray me."

"Wouldn't she?" The woman smiled. "She didn't appear loyal towards you." She waved the issue away. "Regardless. At first we were quite baffled by your appearance. But after consulting with your ship we located a confidential file in the Silo's database. Apparently you were part of a program initiated two centuries ago." With each point, she pulled the leaver of her adding machine. Click. Click. Click. "It was terminated just seven years after it had begun and classified under the highest level of security, which is why we didn't recognize you at first."

Ace blinked, trying to get his vision to stop wobbling about.

Undaunted, the woman continued. "All that is, of course, irrelevant. We will provide you with appropriate psychological motivation and then you will be sent on your first mission."

"Where's Bexley?" Ace managed to ooze to his feet. Or at least it felt like he had oozed. In fact it felt like part of his brain was still oozing after him.

"Bexley?" The woman asked. She made a show of reading one of her papers. "You will be reunited with your friend shortly." She looked over her glasses at him. "How wonderful for you." She pursed her lips. "Strange. This serial number looks familiar—no matter." She held the yellow slip out to one of Ace's Simulant guards. Then she glanced up at Ace over her glasses. "White? After Labour day?"

"Labour… What?" Ace slurred. He glanced down at himself. His flight suit was still gold. "I'm not—"

"Your ship's chronometer isn't in sync with ours. It's not May first for you yet. That explains your faux pas." The accountant replied, idly shuffling her papers. "It's is in your future. Although it's in the past for us." She fixed him with another meaningful stare. "Take him away."

One guard shoved Ace's shoulder, moving him along. He stared after her until her door shut behind him.

(ooo)

Ace was marched through another long series of grey hallways, one guard on each arm. He was still in pain from the interrogation and still buzzing with the Silo's databanks. And that slippery, black _thing_ slid through his thoughts and memories, making everything a little more hazy.

His guards stopped before a non-descript door.

"What's this?" A Simulant voice.

Ace glanced up. Two Simulants flanked another prisoner. Ace gaped. "Rimmer—"

"You sold me out!" Rimmer screeched. "That pompous smug crap about _saving the universe_… all smeg!" He pulled against his guard's grip.

Ace glanced at Rimmer's hologrammatic guards, then Rimmer. What was he on about? "I don't know what's going on. I didn't—"

"The smeg!" Rimmer thrashed against his restraints.

"Oi. That's enough." Rimmer's guard shoved Rimmer to his knees.

Rimmer's other guard fished a crumpled yellow paper out of his pocket, waving it at the Simulants. "We got orders to put this one—" Rimmer's guard nodded at Rimmer. "Into that room."

"Identical orders," the male simulant sneered. Behind Ace the female Simulant laughed.

"Then what do we do?" the hologrammatic guard continued. "Can't have both in the same—"

Ace hit the floor. He touched his neck—pain lanced into his jaw. His fingers slipped against something cold and hard in his neck. They were instantly slick.

He heard distant screaming. Two more shots. He tried to move, but he was paralyzed.

The door to the room opened, and Rimmer's unsteady feet disappeared within.

"What we do now? They're dead." Ace watched the female Simulant's boots move closer.

"Get them jaw-bullets out. If they're found like that—"

Blunt fingers probed his neck, catching around the… _thing _lodged in his flesh. The Simulant yanked it free.

Sometime later, Ace regained awareness. His neck throbbed, his left shoulder throbbed out of sync with his neck and he was bobbing up and down in a nauseating way. He was being dragged—by the arm. Unable to move his head, he watched the prefab metal panels pass and started counting them to distract himself from the pain.

"What we do with 'em?"

"Wrap 'em in a tarp. Hide 'em in the hangar. First shuttle goes out, they'll be sucked into space."

"Good plan."

Ace faded. When he came too, he was in the dark. It smelled dank and greasy and it was pressed right up against his face. A tarp. Ace realized his hand lay beside a cold, lifeless arm.

Bexley told Ace he'd tried to create a Voxel antidote to the fear vaccine. He hadn't been able to perfect his variation. But his Voxel T's were tougher and could regenerate some of the damage done by the fear vaccine. For a time.

Ace looked at the corpse beside him, a darker shape against the dark. Bexley'd saved his life. Well, the other Ace had saved his life using Bexley's Voxel Ts.

Pulling himself to his side, he crawled away from the corpse. Pain prickled down his arms and legs. He slipped his hand down to the small of his back, finding the edge of the voxel morph Bexley'd inserted into him for safekeeping. He could disguise himself as one of the guards—no.

It seemed like he'd been cleared for some sort of mission. If he was in a hanger, maybe the ground crew wouldn't know the details?

He lifted the tarp. The Simulants hadn't been lying. They'd thrown him close to the bay doors in an unlit area. He scanned the floor. A group of ground crew was inspecting a bank of blue midgets. At the end of that bank was a fighter-jet style ship that looked completely out of place.

It was the Wildfire. Ace teared up.

He stood slowly. No one noticed. He started to amble towards his ship. Each step sent shockwaves of pain through his voxels.

He offered a salute to a crewman who glanced his way. The crewman saluted back and returned to his work. If he was concerned by the amount of blood on his clothes, he didn't show it.

Smiling and giving a thumbs up to the rest of the ground crew, Ace reached the Wildfire. He caught her ladder's first rung. As he pulled himself up, his chest spasmed. He locked his elbow in a rung. His vision greyed as he breathed.

Ace hit the canapé release and climbed in. With a hiss the canapé closed. He ran his hands over the control panel. He was home.

"Ace." Said the Wildfire. "You're a bit early."

"Am I?" Ace's brow furrowed. Wildfire sounded… different.

"Shall we go?"

"You have a place in mind?"

"Your current mission objective has been uploaded." His screen flashed. The words 'Dimension 5667' and 'rescue the princess Bonjella' scrolled across the screen.

"Who gave me this objective?"

Wildfire giggled. "Oh, Ace. You're being silly. The Omega Group, of course."

A sliver of ice slipped between Ace's ribs. He remembered what the accountant had said—_Wildfire doesn't seem overly loyal to you. _

This wasn't his Wildfire.

"Yes, well, no time like the present." Ace offered a wan chuckle. "Let's get going."

"Requesting permission to exit, now." Wildfire replied.

Ace clutched his arm rests. A siren sounded and the ground crew exited the hangar. The Wildfire taxied towards the opening bay doors.

Her engines revved. Ace braced himself for the g's.

The hangar passed in a blur of grey, black and streaks of light.

Ace fished behind his chair for a hidden release.

"What are you doing Ace?"

Ace ignored her. He caught the release with his fingernail and opened a small access panel.

"Stop it," the Wildfire warned and decelerated sharply, then whipped through a hard right turn.

Ace gritted his teeth; he'd been thrown away from his objective, hard up against the side of the cockpit. Forcing his body to move against the pressure, he managed to punch the over-ride button in the access panel.

Just as the system rebooted, the g's topped 120 and Ace's vision blanked.

After two minutes of frantic blindness, darker grey outlines filled in his greyed vision. He was able to see. Ace lifted himself back into the chair. "Computer?"

"Yes." The computer intoned.

Ace breathed. "I need you to access your flight log." If it wasn't _his_ Wildfire, then it had to be the _other_ Ace's—Rimmer's.

"Seventy-eight percent of my computational power is involved in a series of conflicting interrupts."

"Ignore it and access the flight log."

The computer brought up the flight log on Ace's screen. It scrolled through.

"Stop." He'd seen something familiar. "Wildfire docked with Starbug two days ago?"

"Yes."

"I'm going to do a heel-toe dimension skip through time. I'll upload the last coordinates the Silo has for Red Dwarf. You keep them locked in and tell me when we arrive."

(ooo)

Wildfire's guts lay glistening on the floor of Red Dwarf's docking bay. Every time he saw them, Ace cringed. It might as well be _his_ innards. He'd had no choice. Wildfire's AI was unmanageable—an insane, wheedling, angry mess. Nothing of Ace's Wildfire remained.

A skutter—Bob—unspoiled a length of fibre-wire and handed the end to Ace. Ace plugged it into Wildfire's modified PIE, now orphaned several meters from the Wildfire chassis.

That done, Ace stepped back and glanced at the chart on a easel. He stepped over, scanning the list he'd written. "Right. Bob."

The skutter beeped.

"You've finished setting the charges, set up the remote detonator and prepped a Blue Midget."

Bob nodded.

"Then we're almost done." Ace drew a line through several entries on his list. Then he flipped the page to the next. It was a complex diagram he'd drawn to explain the situation. It was quite colourful; he'd painted in many of the boxes with his watercolours. The ones he kept in a little compartment under his seat.

When he'd been in his dimension with his Dave, he'd been something of an artist. Even an artist of note, having had a few solo shows. It was one of those things that, when people found out, they said things like, "You really are such a well-rounded bloke," and "Who would ever have guessed, a test pilot in the Space Corps."

To Ace his watercolours were something he did to settle his mind. He would have been content just using them to paint colouring book line drawings or charts or even geography maps like he had when he was a kid, but he always pushed himself to do just a little bit more then was comfortable. He'd started, when he was young, carefully tracing one inch grid lines and then painting in the boxes in patterns. Then he'd challenged himself to alter the lines, arcing them, thinning or thickening, making the shapes they outlined irregular and he'd coloured in the forms they made. He'd done it over and over again, each time pushing himself into a new variation till a friend had noticed and told them they were great abstracts and had he ever considered showing in a gallery?

Bob trilled and Ace shrugged in response. "You're right the watercolours weren't strictly necessary."

The skutter beeped and inclined his claw.

"Thanks for the compliment, Bob. I drew this diagram to better illustrate everything that's going on for the assembled audience." Ace nodded at Bob. The slithery thing in Ace's light bee gave a pulse. It was connected to the Silo mainframe somehow and updated frequently with new information. Ace didn't know exactly what—or who—it was, but he didn't feel any treacherous intent from it. "Currently we are here—" He indicated his cylindrical representation of Red Dwarf, carefully painted vermillion. "Arnold Rimmer is here, killing Agnoids on Tween. Or being killed by them. Two hundred years in our current future." He moved his hand over to the circle representing Tween—done in taupe. "Bexley is here. In the future." Ace indicated the sickle shaped Silo. "And here." He indicated Tween. "In the past. And Dave is here. Just past this blue green planetoidy thing."

"So." Ace clapped his hands. "I chased my doppelganger into this dimension. He evaded me by jumping 200 years into his future and recruited Arnold Rimmer. Evil-Wildfire took Rimmer back to the Silo. I met up with Bexley on Tween and we infiltrated the Silo. Bexley downloaded data from the Silo into my light bee." He touched the Silo with the tip of his marker. "We were captured. I passed the recruited Rimmer, got shot for some reason and dumped in the hangar. Lucky break. Despite how it might seem to the uninformed." He chuckled. "I escaped. I decoded the last known coordinates of Red Dwarf two hundred years in the past. Before it stopped sending call-backs to the Silo." Ace drew a circle around the Dwarf. "So I went back to that time and place and stole the Dwarf. I've told Holly to plot a random course—I won't even know it—that will take the Dwarf to every corner of the galaxy using the PIE and the StarTransit™ lanes." Ace drew a squiggly line over the chart. "I'll board the BlueMidget with the Silo's tracking unit and reinitialize it. It'll send out a call back. They'll think I'm Red Dwarf and pick me up. Then I'll defeat the Omega-Group, get back down on Tween, meet up with Bexley—in his past, of course—wait for myself to arrive two centuries in the future and Bob's your uncle."

Bob offered up a squeak.

"Well, not literally. And yes, all this is hard for me too," Ace said. "I like Skipper. Never thought I'd be stealing Red Dwarf from him. But what can I do? If I don't, the Omegas will find him. And kill him." Ace knelt, looking Bob in the eye. "You've got to stay aboard till James's scout ship catches up, it'll will be stuck to the Transit lanes so it will take centuries. Wait till the scout ship docks, then detonate the charges remotely. That should add another layer of stymie to James' plans. Get yourself out safe first. No grand gestures." Ace shook his finger at Bob. "No noble sacrifices. Get you and Madge and Holly out before you blow it up. Use a garbage pod. That's the best camouflage." Ace chucked Bob on the chin. "And I'm sure you and the missus can find a way to pass the time till Cat picks you up again."

Bob dipped his claw, his eye shield dropping. He gave a low whistle.

"Our inside man—I mean feline? You'd be surprised. Cat's well… a cat. They have a way of running things without anyone ever noticing. He'll find you. I trust that nose of his. And I've told him to be careful."

Bob cocked his claw at Ace.

"I don't have a choice." Ace bowed his head. "It will take two centuries for James to figure out a new cloning process at the very least. At the very best it'll take the Silo right out of commission. Forever." Ace drew an 'X' through the sickle shaped ship.

(ooo)

"You thought you could escape?" James stared out his Observatory window. "You were wrong."

Ace didn't answer. He hadn't had much of an escape plan. Or even a take-over-and-destroy-the-Silo plan. He'd just wished really hard and hoped his luck pulled through. He knew he ended up on Tween with Bexley eventually. _'Best yeh don't know the details.' _Ace was starting to dread those 'details.'

James stepped over. "You have a higher calling. Like all of us, you will bloom."

Ace stared down at James. The man looked like Dave—so much so it made Ace choke. But he was not Dave. Not any version of Dave Ace had _ever_ met. "What do you mean?"

"You're not the only one who can play with time. Your friend arrived on the Wildfire a day before we picked you up. I told him, in the future, if he didn't come here, to the past, that I would kill you, right here, right now. So he came, complete with instructions as to how this whole secret programme was set up. Time is a funny thing." James offered a wane smile. "Check and mate."

"What have you done to him you sick—"

"Did you think I killed him?" James laughed. "He is well. Completely happy. I was about to send you too him, in fact." James waved, and two hologrammatic guards stepped up to Ace. "Take him to Bexley's quarters."

(ooo)

"Arn?"

Ace turned. Not because he was responding to the name, but because of the _voice_. "Bexley?"

"What?" Bexley shook his head. "Why you lookin' at me like that, mate?" He walked to the table, humming 'lunar city seven' and pulling off his towel to dry his hair.

Ace stared.

The heavy house arrest bracelet on Bexley's hand clunked against his head as he tried to towel down his dreads. "Ouch!" He rubbed his temple, shaking the other, braceletted hand at Ace. "Can you believe this? Just for refusin' to give up me cat."

"What are you talking about?" Ace stepped over.

"My cat escaped into storage. It had kittens. Hollister still wants me to help him find them and I won't. So they put me on house arrest till they do." Bexley grinned, rubbing his plaits dry with the towel.

Ace shook his head. "You were captured. By James. Don't you remember? We were trying to find the location of the Red Dwarf and you—"

Bexley snorted. "This some sort of joke, Arn? We're on Red Dwarf, yeah?" He turned to the sink, picking up his tooth brush and squeezing paste onto the bristles.

"We're not on Red Dwarf, Bexley—"

"Yeh keep calling me that. Yeh know my name, _Rimmer_."

"What's your name?" Ace tensed.

"The same it's always been. Dave Lister." Bexley brushed his teeth with overzealous strokes—Ace went a bit cross-eyed at the sound despite himself.

"No. You're not," Ace breathed. "Your name is Bexley and they've done something to you, something to your mind. They've made you forget."

"Look. I'm not Bexley. An' I'm not playin' him in some strange fantasy of yours." Bexley shot Ace a 'drop it' look.

Ace ignored him. "We're on a ship called the Silo. You've had your mind changed. I don't know who you think you are, but—"

"Very funny, Arn. I bet aliens are behind it all." He started to brush again.

"Would you listen?" Ace's hands tensed into fists. "Nothing is as it seems."

Bexley spat out a mouthful of toothpaste and water. "This is getting silly, yeah?" He wiped his mouth with his towel. "There. All clean." Bexley grinned and stepped over to Ace.

Ace opened his mouth to try and explain—

Bexley kissed him. Ace jerked back in surprise, but Bexley held on and kissed him again. "Yer not runnin' away. An' yer not hidin' behind alien invasions or alternate realities or anythin' else yer smeggy mind can dream up. No excuses."

Ace tried again. "This isn't an excuse—"

Bexley unzipped Ace's flight jacket, slipping his hand against Ace's chest. Ace gave in, leaning his head into Bexley's shoulder, letting Bexley's fingers slip against his ribs.

He caught Bexley's hand, his eyes closed. He'd chosen to leave his dimension because he'd lost Dave—Spanners—in his. He couldn't handle finding him every morning and losing him every night. All the while, respecting Kochanski—hugging her in genuine friendship, flirting with her in a genial way, kissing her cheek without rancor—being the very picture of a friend-of-Spanners-who-knows-his-place. All the while seething at her and him in that deep place where Ace was still Rimmer. "No." Ace continued. "You're not someone who'd want this."

"What's that mean, yeah?" Bexley's fingers slid down Ace's hip, catching his belt and running along it. Ace jerked, his stomach ticklish. "I know what I want."

"No," Ace choked. "Not this."

Bexley unbuckled Ace's belt. "Yeh come in here with a silly hair-cut, in a silly get up and spout off some bushwa about aliens and then yeh tell _me_ I don't know what I want?"

Ace turned his face into Bexley's neck. "Kristine."

"For smeg's sake, Rimmah! Let it go. I had a crush on her, nothin' more."

"A crush." Ace repeated. _This_ Dave—which ever one it was—hadn't married Kristine. Hadn't fallen in love with her. He'd fallen for _Rimmer_. Or something close to it. Ace shook his head. Amazing. The one dimension where he was a worthless smeg-pot and that worthless smeg-pot'd got what Ace had always wanted. "I'm not Rimmer," Ace said.

"Who are yeh then?"

"I'm Ace." _Know who I am before I violate your trust_. Ace leaned into Bexley's chest.

"Ace is it?" Bexley laughed. "Alright Ace. Or Iron Balls, or whatever yeh want to be called." He pulled off Ace's flight jacket. Ace let it fall. He decided he should do something with his hands so he cupped Bexley's shoulders.

Bexley caught Ace's arm, then a leg and Ace found himself flat on his back, his arse smarting from the impact.

"You remember this?" Bexley grinned down at Ace, kneeling over his chest, pinning him.

(ooo)

James sat at one of his large red-leather chairs. His hands were steepled in front of his face as he stared into the amber depths of a pint of stout.

Ace wished the man would laugh manically, look smug and self-satisfied, or boast about Ace being a 'most worthy adversary.' No. He always had to be taciturn and unhappy. Moody. Ace seethed at him. James didn't even have the decency to allow Ace to hate him more then he hated himself.

"Hello, Ace." James said without looking up. "I think we understand each other better now."

"You're a monster."

"Yes." James rested his chin on his fingers. "Now. Here are my terms." He frowned. "I won't make you do anything overtly evil. No. You'll be lauded as a hero in every dimension you go to. But what you will do will alter the course of history to my ends.

"Your first mission, in fact your _only_ mission, is to rescue the princess Bonjella from a fascist uprising." James took a sip of his pint. "She's quite taken with several very expensive chemicals—"

"An addict."

"Yes. After Bonjella's family fortune evaporates, she turns to other means to feed her appetites. She will give birth to a daughter who will be raised in the most appalling circumstances. That daughter will move to Liverpool and raise a son in much the same conditions as she was raised." James set his pint glass back on his table. "That son will grow up to be an infamous murderer. Two of his victims will be a young couple—Mark and Elaine who have an infant son. That child must never find his parents."

"And that's the 'butterfly flapping its wing', is it?"

"You could say that."

"And if I refuse to help?" Ace knew the answer.

"Bexley dies." James leaned over his knees. "It's your choice, of course. Your precious dimensions, or the one you love and the love you crave."


	26. Bexley

-1Red Dwarf Fanfic: Last Humans

Chapter 23: Bexley

Summary: Bexley finally remembers.

Warnings: Language, violence, apparent character death, explicit sexual situations, Ace/Bexley

Beta: Rack

Chapter Rating: MA(18 )

(ooo)

Chapter 24: Bexley

(ooo)

"You know." Ace stared at James steadily. He was in completely new territory now. He'd never before got to the point of being found out. "How?"

"I suspected. As you know Nelsen was a sexual monster of the most depraved sort. Funny that." James shrugged. "When I first met him he was bland as a primary school health class. But the fear vaccine makes us all _bloom_." He sipped his beer. "You shouldn't have chosen a personality you didn't have the stomach to emulate. As soon as Nelsen stopped… well, forcing himself on his staff… I knew something was up. I didn't know, at first, if Nelsen hadn't contracted some sort of groinal malaise or if he'd somehow been _replaced_. So I decided to test you—with your other self." James folded his arms.

Ace clapped. "Congrats. You got me."

"Do you think you were ever some sort of threat?"

"I'm not your enemy." Ace replied, feeling about a couple billion dimensions worth of tired.

"Oh yes. You're right in a military sense. You have no _resources_ to oppose me in any effective way, yet—" James looked up at Ace. "I find myself unable to kill you."

"I have been told I'm quite a hassle to kill."

James' lips quirked against his glass. "Not what I meant, and you know it."

Ace offered a lopsided smile. "We share so much in common. You want to destroy the universe. I want to save it. I'd say that's a start to a beautiful… er… antagonism."

"Why do you care?" James asked.

"About what? Saving the universe. Because I'm an all-around great guy and somebody to look up to."

James sat down in an overstuffed chair. "I think we are the similar, you and I. Driven by the same desire not to be attached _to anything_. Yet impotent to stop it."

Ace's fingers twitched. "What's your point?"

"Why do you want to save a cesspit of a mistake populated by psychotic Agnoids, stagnant holograms and increasingly monstrous GELFs?"

"Why do _you_ want to destroy it?"

"I looked into the world and touched its emptiness." James' stared out his view screen. "What is there left to do?"

"I thought you were driven by the desire not to be attached." Ace folded his arms over his chest.

"That too. I suppose everything any of us say is just justification for our base psychological processes." James shoulders slumped. He looked defeated, even in triumph.

Ace squinted at James. "I've never been able to see the Lister in you."

"I'm the Lister that gave up trying to find a connection to anything."

"Ah. Post-modern ennui Lister. Must collect the whole set," Ace grunted. "So, at the risk of cutting this fascinating discussion short, could you skip to the part where you explain what evil thing you're going to do with me?"

James chuckled softly. "You _bloom,_ of course." He pressed his control and the surveillance footage fast-forwarded to a still of Rimmer's face as Ace choked him. He was at the edge of terror. Ace, on the other hand, looked… excited.

Ace paled.

James turned away. "For centuries of your time I used you to kill with kindness. All to poke the dimensions in the right direction. _My_ direction. And as they winked out, one by one, I watched you age and degrade. But I never saw you lose yourself. I'm amazed to see you now, two hundred years after I wore you out like a cheap shoe, still somewhat yourself. But patience does pay… the bud ripens, ready to burst."

Ace stared at James's hands, unable to look at anything else.

James's hands twitched. His voice was low. "Did it tear you up inside, being with me instead of _him_?"

Ace glanced up. James looked torn as he compulsively fiddled with his glass it till it was equidistant from each side of the table. He poured another pint and downed it. "I'm giving you Bexley."

Ace's hands fisted at his side. He wanted to wrap his fingers around James and _throttle_ him. But not this time. Not again. Too much was at stake.

James turned, watching Ace with haunted eyes. James' voice hitched, as if his words tumbled out against his will. "Indeed. I wonder how long it will be before you lose yourself and tear one of us apart with your bare hands?"

James' com beeped on his wrist. He brought it up. "Yes?"

The small image on his com spoke. "Sir. There's been an illegal transport off the ship."

"Off the ship? From where?"

"Commander Nelsen's quarters. Whoever did it used a dangerous antique. A matter paddle. I didn't think… I mean, we haven't seen those things for millions of years. I barely stopped them being ionized in the PIE field. I—"

James turned off his com, his eyes closed.

Ace waited.

James carefully picked up his pint glass and threw it against his view screen. It shattered and ale splattered all over James, his desk and his bookcase. James flicked off drops of fluid beading on his suit's arm, took a breath and turned to look at Ace. "No doubt this is the work of your Unionists." James' hands fisted. "Regardless. Your dangerous stunt achieves nothing."

"Is it?" Ace asked.

"My original is coming either way. Here or there. It doesn't matter. It will all end."

Ace's lips quirked. "But _there_ gives your original a chance to slip through your fingers. You forget how many times I've been through this—"

"It doesn't matter!" James brought his fists down on his desk.

Ace said nothing. He watched blood pool under James' fist and kept his face passive.

"But just in case it does…" James picked the glass out of his palm. He glanced up, not looking at Ace. "I suppose I can't completely trust my ship-class Holograms anymore. The whole ship is… threaded with your converts. I know that much." His gaze slipped over to Ace; there was a certain ugly satisfaction in James' eyes. "I'll have to send Company Simulants over. And I'm not responsible for the ungodly mess they will make."

(ooo)

"I'm having trouble locking onto Lister." Kryten tapped the input panel mounted over his groinal attachment. "His signal is moving all over the ship. I'm sorry, ma'am—" Kryten threw his hands up in disgust. "I can't do anything."

Metal screeched against metal. Kochanski turned.

Arnold had sat bolt upright in his cot.

"Arnold?" Kochanski stepped towards him.

"No time!" He barked and jumped up off his cot. He stood, glancing around, stumped by Bob's devastated control room."Where's Lister?"

"We haven't found him yet." Kochanski replied. "We're trying to get hold of his signal."

Rimmer closed his eyes. "He's still on the Silo."

"Yes." 

"Keep trying to find him. I'm going to the Wildfire."

"Why?" Kochanski caught his shoulder.

He shrugged out of his grip. "I've got to—"

She stared at him. "We saw what was written on your hand. Kryten figured it out."

"Yes, sir. Bob was kind enough to help with the… er… procurement."

"Bob?" Arnold glared down at the little skutter. "I have to put my trust in a mendacious little pocket calculator on treads once again?" Arnold's nostrils were on full. "Life is never without it's precious little moments."

Bob squealed and did an abrupt three-sixty, running over Arnold's foot and buzzing away. Arnold screeched and bent over double, clutching his foot. He swore then called after Bob, "That hardly hurt you tin rat!"

"What was that about?" Kochanski watched Bob disappear through the doorway.

Arnold ignored her question. "How did you get me back?"

"The matter paddle," Kochanski replied.

Kryten looked up from his scanning to point at the now charred and smoking paddle. "For some reason it shorted out on the way back."

"Because of the PIE field." Rimmer shook his head. "Those things were banned. We're lucky we didn't end up in the middle of a bulk-head or a bit of vaporized carbon in Tween's core."

"Erm," Kryten protested. Kochanski glared at him. "But, sir, we used it multiple times…"

Rimmer blinked at Kryten, his face blank. "Oh, yes. I remember now." He shuddered. "My God, we were lucky. Do you realize the failure statistics on those things? Why do you think that technology was abandoned?"

"You know your stuff," Kochanski said.

Rimmer offered her a look of contempt. "How else do you think I'm going to re-program the Wildfire so Lister can pilot it?"

Kochanski ignored his attitude. "Dave pilot the Wildfire?"

Bob zipped between them, a set of needles in his claw. Arnold took them and held them up to the light. "How do I know this won't kill me? The last time—"

Bob spread his claw wide in a gesture of innocence.

"Right. This should be enough to finish what needs to get done." Arnold pocketed the needles. He stopped, staring. "I have trousers. When did that happen?"

Kochanski blushed. "I, uh, found some. Kryten helped."

Arnold glanced at the wobbly mechanoid and shuddered. "That is the stuff of nightmares."

Kryten didn't seem to take offence. "Are you going to the docking bay, sir?"

"It's where the Wildfire is, isn't it?" Arnold sneered.

Kochanski grimaced. What had she seen in him? Oh right. That _was _what she had seen in him. She gave Arnold a disapproving look and glanced over Kryten's consol. "Is there any pattern to the signal movements?"

"Good idea, ma'am." Kryten concentrated on the console. "I'm running some comparisons now."

"Right." Arnold stood. "Since Bob hasn't killed me or turned me rabid, I'm off. Ta." He set off towards the door.

Kochanski put her hand on his chest, stopping him. "What are you planning?"

"If Lister can pilot the Wildfire's PIE, we won't be stuck to the StarTransit™ lanes."

"What's the range?"

"Anywhere in the Universe."

(ooo)

Ace pulled himself to his feet and staggered till his hand hit a wall. He'd passed out from the shock of having the voxel-morph pulled out of his spine. His head felt like a disco dance nightmare, a pounding beat behind his eyes and endless visual effects cheese projected on his retinas.

Ace followed the wall to a bed and sat down.

His vision settled into a wobbly groove, and he glanced around himself. He was in one of those awful Space Core regulation bunk-rooms. One indistinguishable from the next. It was close to the external bulkhead, giving it an almost imperceptible and completely disorientating slant. The room was familiar. Cold recognition trickled down his spine.

He glanced at the door. "Door," he said. It remained firmly shut.

Someone started a muffled, mangled version of "Lunar City Seven." Ace glanced over, recognizing the soft hiss as the shower door slid open.

Out popped a wet man with long dreads. He began towelling himself off without even noticing Ace. As he wiped down his dreads, he slammed the heavy house arrest bracelet he wore around his wrist into his forehead. "Ouch!"

Bexley. Ace's throat tightened. He tried to clear it with a cough.

Bexley turned. "Oh, hi. Didn't see you come in." Lister's clone propped his leg up and looked at Ace in bemusement. "What did you do to your hair?"

"What? Hair?" Ace brushed his hand through his locks. He paused, swallowed and rushed Bexley, gathering the man up against his chest. Bexley grunted in surprise. Ace buried his head against Bexley's shoulder, took a deep breath, then pulled him to the bed.

"Woah," Bexley said. "This is a change." He chuckled and ran his fingers through Ace's blond hair. "Weird."

"I love you." Ace breathed into his ear.

"Definitely a change," Bexley replied. "Change for the better, mate."

Ace didn't try to explain. But he did pause.

"What's wrong?" Bexley asked. "Seemed like it was getting goin' an—"

Ace pressed him down kissing him. "It is." _Would it still work?_ Ace caught Bexley's jaw, biting too hard, wanting to press his body into the man.

He continued to bite and lick and scratch; a little rough. Bexley protested with a chuckle – "I knew yeh were a closet perv"—then seemed to reach that stage of arousal when pain dulled and the mind focused.

Ace slipped between Bexley's legs, his trousers open. Bexley stopped him, "We've never—" Then he sat up to fish under his mattress for a bottle of handcream... kept for those nights Bexley'd pretended to be asleep and fooled no-one.

The cream was cold. Ace kissed and rubbed against him till Bexley relaxed. And then he slipped in. "Push down," Ace said.

"I didn't think—" Bexley gasped and curled against Ace.

It seemed almost instantaneous. Bexley grabbed the shoulders of Ace's jacket, indenting the bacofoil. His head was shoved against Ace's shoulder, biting down on a mouthful of uniform. He shuddered. Cum splattered over Bexley's belly.

Ace finished and sat back on his haunches. He pressed his thumbs into his eyes, not saying a word. Hope slid into his chest—and caught—like a fish hook. _Would it work?_

(ooo)

Kochanski pressed her thumb against the ident-pad and dialled up her authorization code. "Docking bay."

The lift whirred into life. She and Arnold stood, close but not touching.

Rimmer bobbed, rocking onto the balls of his feet, "You know, I was resurrected by Dave… I mean, the real Dave, not the clone. Lister's grandfather. Or his grandson." He shrugged. "He used the PIE to do it." Rimmer grimaced. "He was very attached to me. Or him."

"Yes?"

"The Rimmer that was resurrected in this body remembers that. The Rimmer that was resurrected as a hologram doesn't. It's hard to remember one thing and a completely opposite thing at the same time."

"I can imagine," Kochanski offered.

"Lister doesn't remember," Rimmer continued. "I realize now, _why_. He's not the original Lister. I thought he was ignoring me for _you_. I never explained why I was angry." He leaned against the lift wall. "I'm a coward, you see." Rimmer edged away from her, eyes down. "At some level I thought… if he saw you with me, he'd realize you weren't with him. At least that's why, the first time…" He leaned his forehead against the lift wall. "I'm sorry, Kris."

Kochanski swallowed, dry mouthed. "Stop." She held up her hand.

"Why?"

"This sounds like goodbye. And I don't want to hear it."

Rimmer stared at her as if he wanted to say something more. The lift doors opened. They walked through the corridor to the docking bay entrance in silence. Kochanski punched in her authorization code. The two storey doors trundled open.

They remained silent as they walked into the bay towards the Wildfire's docking station. Kochanski couldn't look at Arnold, she was having a hard time breathing around the tight lump in her throat. Her wrist consol beeped. She brought it up, "What's up, Hol?"

"Wait a mo'. Kryten's saying something." Hol turned to look off-screen. "What's that? Oh. Right." He bobbed back to centre. "Kryten's flailin' and yellin' about you getting Rimmer shielded or they're going to find him again. I picked up a scan—"

"Shielded? With what?"

Holly bobbed away. The screen was blank.

Kochanski glanced around the hanger. Blue midgets sat in a row along the near wall, the one under the bay of flight tower stations, an eight-by-twelve grid of pods, all dark except for one in the lower right. In it a flight controller appeared to be slumped over in his chair and under it blinked an emergency station sign.

Kochanski ran towards it. All emergency stations were stocked with lead-lined suits—in case of accidental hard-space exposure.

She thumbed the station open and pulled out the first suit, shoved her shoulder under it and heaved.

It barely folded. But she managed to release the catch and get it moving.

By the time she reached the Wildfire, she was exhausted and shaking. "Arnold!"

He popped his head out from under the Wildfire's fuselage.

"Get this on!" She shoved it at him. "No time to explain!"

He pulled himself up and took it from her hands. Unzipping the back, he stepped in. "Don't know if I can do work in this. It's like doing a tango with three great aunts latched onto both arms and a leg—"

"Look." Kochanski gasped, hands on her knees to keep herself somewhat upright. "Just put it on."

"I'll have to leave the helmet and gloves off."

She waved him away and brought up her wrist consol. "Hol?"

"Sorry 'bout that, Kris. Just a bit of confusion. Kryten said "lead suit" an' I thought he'd said "mad root". Spent five minutes tryin' to call up botanical pest control and tell them the salad is dodgy."

"It's okay now," Kochanski replied, watching Arnold try to wedge fifty pounds of suit—and himself—back under the fuselage. "I figured it out. So what's happening with evil-Lister?"

"Nothing's happened yet, Kris—"

A clang startled her. She glanced back at Arnold. He was staring at a dropped socket wrench and rubbing his jaw.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing." He shook his head. "I just…" He looked up at her and a ghost of fear crossed his eyes. "I just couldn't remember how to re-wire the fuel injection system. No, not that. I _felt_ like I couldn't do it. Like I'd just screw it up. Don't worry. I got it now." Arnold scooped up his socket wrench and returned to his work.

"This is…" Kochanski swallowed. "It's a bit of a gamble, isn't it?"

Arnold looked up at her. "What? This immunosuppressant thing?" He grinned nastily. "Very much so. Too much and I become a coward. Too little and I'm a monster."

Kochanski backed towards the hanger bay doors, watching Arnold. "I'm going to go help Kryten get Dave back." She glanced at the needles on the floor next to Arnold. "I hope Bob knows what he's doing."

(ooo)

Ace watched Bexley sit up and scrabble back from him, till his back hit the wall.

"I'm sorry." Ace stared at the ground.

Bexley's voice shook. "It had to be done." Bexley pulled his trousers back on. "I understand the mechanics. Non-somatic systems retain voxel-Ts longer and produce aggressive, colonizin' strains." His voice was robotic. Bexley closed his eyes. "Yeh did it more'n once too. It didn't work before."

Ace bowed his head into his hands. "It didn't work because the change lasts an hour, maybe two. Tops." Ace swallowed. "What James did to you… I can't even begin to understand it. He somehow fixed your awareness to a single day in your own past."

"The Ts'll have evolved a bit in you over all these years, Ace." Bexley said. "Maybe it'll last longer."

Ace went silent, his eyes closed. He wanted to speak to all the things hanging in the air between them. But there was no time. "We've got to get out. Any ideas?"

Bexley jerked his head towards the door lock. "I might be able teh over-ride it." He glanced around. "You got an acetylene torch?"

"What do you need cut?"

Bexley pointed to the metal panel above the lock mechanism.

Ace stepped over to it, took a deep breath and slammed his fist into the wall. Pain radiated up his arm. He paused a moment to shake it out and punched it again.

Bexley edged up to him. "That hurts, yeah?"

"_Yes._" Ace hissed. The wall was starting to pucker. He kept at it till his arm was throbbing. A ridge of metal raised along the seam. Ace caught his fingers under it and pulled. The panel peeled back.

Bexley stepped up, fiddling in the wires embedded in the wall. "Get me toenail clippers and Rimmer's twist ties," he said, picking out a few wires.

Ace fished in the cupboard over the sink, and found nothing. He walked over to the bed, knelt down and saw a soft metallic glint in amongst the mounds of dust-bunnies and assorted ossified pompadoms. He pulled it out along with a handful of scattered twist ties.

"Here." He handed the mess to Bexley.

Bexley picked out the nail clips and a twist tie. Using the sharp edge of the clips, he began to strip a wire. Before he could finish the door slid open.

"Did you?" Ace asked. "I didn't think—"

"I didn't." Bexley replied and stood.

"Gift horse and all that." Ace shrugged. "Skipper's been captured. We've got to get him out." Ace edged out the door, looking down the hall. "Not even a guard. Too easy." Ace trotted down the hall.

"Who_is_ that?" Bexley asked. "Skipper?"

Ace hesitated. "Dave Lister."

"Dave Lister. Yeh mean me father?"

"No. I mean one of James' clones."

"Smeg." Bexley stopped. Ace didn't. Bexley started up again, running till he caught up. "If that's true then James' goin' to—"

"Yes," Ace said. "If I know James, it's too late."

"Yer Voxel-T system… How much yeh have left?"

Ace did a calculation. "About a tenth of a percent. I used up quite a bit on the Silo."

Bexley closed his eyes. "Not enough. Yer gonna slide."

"No choice, Sparks."

They weaved through a kilometre of dull grey hallway. Ace spent the time feeling like smeg. He'd taken advantage of Bexley because he didn't have the strength to say no. Even if it was—plausibly deniably—to save the universe.

Ace stopped at a door. He knocked.

The door opened. Ace ducked inside. The room had a single small desk in the centre. A grey-haired woman in a tidy suit sat behind an adding machine.

Ace stepped up to the desk. "White? On Labour day?"

"I think you'll find Labour day hasn't occurred yet aboard the Silo." The woman countered.

"Hasn't it?" Ace replied.

The figure nodded, punched in a few numbers, cranked the adding machine's handle and waved Ace away.

"Let's go." Ace grabbed Bexley's arm.

When they were out in the hall, Bexley hesitated. "I remember her."

"Yeah. She used to be an Insurgency Agent on Tween before she got a promotion to ship-class Company Hologram."

"She's a Unionist."

"Has been since before I founded it." Ace winked.

(ooo)

The Observatory processing level was deserted. Distantly, Ace heard the sounds of gunfire and screaming. He scanned the room, eyes watering against the brilliant white of the walls. A lavender shape slumped on a table across the room. Dave. Ace noticed two figures, dressed in white and barely visible against the walls, hunched over him. They glanced up at him. One dropped a psy-scan. It hit the floor without a sound.

Ace walked towards the operating table. Halfway there he barked his knee on an invisible field. He ran his hands over the surface, electrical pulses pricking his fingers. "Bexley—"

"I'm on it." Bexley jumped over to the control panel and started punching in codes.

One of the surgeon realized what he was doing and got up to bang on the shield. The other looked between them and his partner, uncertain.

"Nothing in, nothing out. Not even a communications transition," Ace said, grinning. He wished he had a smoke.

An argument started up in the operating theatre. One surgeon—Ace figured him for a Unionist—was reaching for the shield release. The other was trying to stop him. Ace angled towards the non-Union surgeon and braced himself.

The shield slid open.

Ace barrelled into the one surgeon with enough force to slam him against the wall. His com unit skittered along the floor, and Ace kicked it away. He tried to rise and Ace caught his temple with a knee. The man slumped, stunned, and his partner watched Ace for a moment. Then offered a tentative Union greeting. Ace returned it, tilted his head towards the exit—the Unionist took his hint and fled—and turned back to the non-Union surgeon. Ace couldn't knock him out, but he could make the next few minutes of his life miserable. "Get Lister," Ace called to Bexley. He heard Bexley lift Lister off the operating table.

The surgeon roused a bit. Ace menaced him and he subsided.

"I've got him."

Ace stepped away from the surgeon. His stare was hot and angry, waiting for a moment to make his move. Ace didn't give him that moment. He jumped back, outside of the shield, and slapped the outside shield lock, _on_, and grinned as the surgeon lunged to his feet and pounded on the suddenly solid air.

With them contained, he turned to Bexley. Dave was slumped over Bexley's shoulder. Ace waved him down and Bexley lowered him to the floor.

Dave's head was a gruesome mess of cut skin and broken skull.

Bexley paled.

Ace swore. "He's been processed." He leaned his forehead into Dave's neck, his mouth on autopilot. "He isn't here anymore."

"Here?"

"He's in the Silo now, Sparks."

Bexley stared at him, his face blank, not really understanding. The urge to punch Bexley curled in Ace's fists. It wasn't real to him. He hadn't known Sparks. Not like Ace.

Bexley pounded his knee with a fist. "Wait, wait. I think there's somethin' we could do."

"What?"

"Yer light bee. It has a connection to the Silo mainframe. That could pull him out. In an activated PIE field."

"It doesn't anymore. Whatever that was, it slipped into—" Ace glanced at Bexley. "Rimmer. Rimmer's light bee."

Footsteps.

Bexley hit Ace's arm. Ace looked back.

The surgeon they'd let go couldn't meet Ace's gaze. He'd brought back James' guards.


	27. James

-1

Red Dwarf Fanfic: Last Humans

Chapter 25: James

Summary: Ace gets tetchy and Cat's secret is revealed.

Warnings: Language, violence, character death

Beta: Rack

Chapter Rating: T(13 )

(ooo)

Chapter 25: James

(ooo)

//Ship Serial No: Silo INDP556790

//Ship's Time: 12:10-06.04-003.000.345

//AI-List-Silo: CLONE PARTS INSTALLED

//AI-List-Silo: PIE INITIALIZATION COMENCING

Unable to stop his fall, Ace slammed into Bexley. Bexley grunted and kept his eyes on the ground. Ace tried to stand—again. The guard behind him pressed a night stick into the small of his back. Ace knelt back down and hissed as his shackles rubbed against his chafed wrists. They'd been waiting for what seemed like weeks.

The door opened. Ace lifted his head but could only see an outline against the light shining in from the hallway.

James paced towards Ace. "More helpless flailing and nothing to show for it." James caught Ace's face, staring at him. "Every attempt you made to stop fate, thwarted."

Ace scoffed. "What made you think I wanted to _stop_ any of this? I want your father here. I want you here. I _pointed_ Rimmer to that StarTransit™ hub. I knew you'd set it up years ago to relay back to Tween." Ace laughed. "I had to kill you hundreds of times before I realized _that_ was exactly what gets you what you want. You infect or, alternatively, kill Rimmer. You harvest Dave. I kill you. And your _father_ uses the PIE a final time and _it gives him exactly what he wants_. An end." Ace lifted his head, grinning. "Not this time. This time you will have to face your pop. And he will have to face you."

James backed away. "I'll kill _myself_…"

The guard shoved Ace's head down. Ace strained to speak. "You can try. But a Voxel-T system is very, very hard to break."

James stopped.

Ace pushed back against the hand holding his neck, forcing himself high enough to look at James. "I may no longer be able to save myself but I can save you."

James stared at Ace in silence.

"Get rid of them." James' voice was low. "Take them to the transport bay. Drop them on Tween. Let them kill each other." He turned away from Ace. "You think you've won, but you haven't. I'll win in the end."

"I hope so," Bexley replied, softly.

James stopped, and his back stiffened. Without turning around he continued on.

(ooo)

"Boss's wantin' us to keep this one alive." Re'psych'eble pulled the holoroid taped to the transport chamber's glass wall. He tipped it towards his attaché so she could have a look.

His attaché, N'N'ame'barand, a female simulant absent a nose and possessing three too many fingers—she had a bit of a thing for fingers—glanced at it and sniffed. "How'm I supposed to tell them things apart?"

"Not with this." Re'psych'eble threw the holoroid over his shoulder. "Tch. Wanting to keep some alive. James' gone soft."

"We should kill him."

"Gad'X'terra-ngth tried." Re'psych'eble shrugged.

"What happened?"

"Fred managed to salvage Gad's elbow bearin's."

His attaché considered this. "Good for Fred. He's been needin' a new pair for at least a millennia."

"Boss said to teleport into the dockin' bay. Keep 'im from escapin'."

N'N'ame'barand examined readouts from the Silo's master scanner on her psy-scan monitor. "Only one life sign in the hangar. Not much to kill."

Re'psych'eble glanced at the psy-scan. "We's lookin' for an omega-cappa readin' to bring back. Not there neither."

"Why go?"

"Good point. Where'z the most life signs?"

(ooo)

Hollister sat at the head table in the briefing bay. Nine hundred ranking officers sat at dozens of tables arranged in neat rows before him. He glanced down the length of the head table. Ackerman was missing. Hollister leaned over to Security Chief Thorton. "Where's Ackerman."

"Decided not to come." Thorton shrugged.

Hollister quivered at the implications. He couldn't decide if it was potential insurrection or a rat fleeing a sinking ship. Either way… Hollister blanched. He stood, holding tight to what he knew and what he knew how to do. "Quiet, please." Hollister waved his hands for silence. His senior staff began to settle down and drop their conversations and arguments.

"I've assembled you to put to rest the various rumours and gossip flying about the ship. First of all, no, we are not under attack by the Silo—this is patently absurd. The broadcast was a practical joke on their part. Pure chicanery. Great sense of humour, these Pluto boys." Hollister grunted rhythmically and prayed the sound came across as a light hearted laugh. "There are no hostile forces anywhere near Europa—"

"How does that help us?" Someone called out from the crowd. "_We're_ nowhere near Europa."

Hollister ground his teeth and ignored the interruption. "We're making our final approach to Europa. The delay in our drop schedule has been due to an especially long and costly outbreak of mutated Venusian flu on Europa." Hollister slammed his hand down on the table top. "Any more mention of deep space will be considered mutiny. I want everyone to realize that now, more then ever, we need order and calm. The skutter malfunction has been contained: ship's functions have been returned to Holly. Any more seditious rumours need to be ignored. It's business as usual."

"No it isn't," a voice called out from the entrance.

Todhunter stood at the door to the assembly room, assault rifle in hand. A canary—one of the frightening ones with more metal in his face then a gun range target—stood behind Hollister's former second lieutenant.

Hollister gestured to Thorton, "Arrest him!"

"On it," Thorton grunted, and stepped forward. Todhunter levelled his rifle at Hollister.

Monsoon season began in Hollister's armpits.

Todhunter yelled over the crowd. "We're being attacked by Simulants—"

"Nonsense!" Hollister narrowed his eyes.

"You need to break open the armory. Authorize crew to get weapons. Set off the EMP charges—"

"This is preposterous! There is no invasion! And why would Simulants be aggressive towards humans?"

"There's no time! They're—" Todhunter jerked forward a step. A dark stain spread over his JMC jacket. He clutched his side, staring at the stain in mute disbelief. He stepped again, one more time, and his knees buckled. He fell.

Hollister stared at the twitching form of his ex-first officer. Two Simulants stepped over him and ambled into the room, and dozens more glared in from the corridor.

His officers watched with him, transfixed.

"Oi," said one—female?— Simulant. "There's a lot of 'em in here. And they's got nowhere to run."

(ooo)

The cutting pressure around Ace's wrists eased. Weight came off his back and he was lifted—helped—to his feet.

"We gotta transport you," the guard said.

Ace turned to look at his guard. "Yes."

"James's gone now. We'll take you where you need to go."

The pressure around his wrists and against his back eased. Ace rubbed his arms then stood. "You're not Unionists."

"We're holograms," the guard replied. "There aren't many of us who like Simulants. And now it looks like James has decided to hold them above his real crew."

Ace nodded. "I've got to get on Red Dwarf."

The other guard was unlocking Bexley's cuffs and helping him to his feet. "James anchored a matrix to Red Dwarf's internal coordinates. Simulants are usin' the transport-relay to access every floor. You'd have to sneak past them."

"Give me your gun." Ace held out his hand to one of the guards. After a moment's hesitation the guard handed over his .44. Ace took it and stepped towards the door. "Let's go."

(ooo)

Kochanski clutched her assault rifle to her chest. The stock was slick with sweat. She stared at the lift ceiling as it rumbled up the floors.

The doors opened.

Cat, Kryten and a small skutter troop lead by Bob jumped in. She stared at them. They stared back. The doors closed behind them.

"I was coming to get you," she said. "Did you find Dave?" She knew the answer to that. He wasn't there. They hadn't.

Even so when Kryten shook his head—so distraught he couldn't muster his usual histrionics—she felt sick. Kryten forced out more. "Ma'am, Red Dwarf is full of Simulants. Every floor."

"I saw," Kochanski replied. She didn't elaborate. She leaned her temple against the wall and closed her eyes. Then she remembered. She brought up her wrist. "Hol, can't you set off EMP charges?"

"Hollister used them to deactivate the skutters. They'd have to be reset manually. A bit dangerous at the moment, what with the Simulants crawlin' about." Holly replied.

The lift shuddered to a stop.

"What's going on, Hol?" Kochanski asked.

"There's a baker's dozen of Simulants waiting for the lift doors to open on the dockin' bay floor. You've got to get out of the lift. Best find a service tunnel to travel through."

(ooo)

The hologrammatic guards lead Ace and Bexley through the Silo's corridors. They stopped just before an intersection. Ace's head was pounding.

One of the guards crept along the wall and peeked around the corner. Ace followed suit. A clot of Simulants milled around the transport bay doors.

Ace pulled back from the corner.

The guard leaned close to whisper. "Somehow you've got to get past them—"

"Eh! Eh! Whot you lot doin'?"

Ace glanced up. A Simulant—short, square, with a sloppy tear in the synthetic skin over his temple. He'd wandered in from a side corridor.

Ace forced a grin. "We're checking up for the big cheese."

"That don't sound right." The Simulant narrowed it's only functioning eye.

"Look for yourself." Ace inclined his head towards the hallway beyond.

The Simulant glanced over.

It was all the in Ace needed. Ace drew his gun and shot the Simulant through the temple.

The Simulant's body swayed on its feet—automatic systems still operating—till it crumpled at the knees.

Ace glanced at the guards. "Run." He turned back to the intersection, not waiting to see if they'd followed his instructions.

Bexley stepped up to him. "Yeh've killed us, yeh know."

"Maybe." Ace said.

A group of Simulants rounded the corner.

(ooo)

Kochanski half crouched, dusting a panel that read '32C-22-32.' The service tunnels were dim and dusty. The access panel labelling was deeply cryptic. "What does that mean, Holly?"

"You're about a floor down from where you should be."

"So up at the next junction?"

"Yes."

Kochanski nodded and waved everyone on.

"How much further?" Cat asked.

"Next junction, one floor up," Kochanski replied.

"I hope you have money for a fine, because getting dirt on this coat is a ticketable offence," Cat griped, flicking the cobwebs off his suit.

"We shouldn't be talking. If Simulants hear us, you'll have more to worry about then dry-cleaning, Cat."

Cat grimaced but settled down.

They walked in silence to the junction. Relieved to be able to stand, Kochanski gazed up at the ladder above them.

"There's no access panels into the docking bay," Kochanski whispered to Kryten. "We'll end up outside the hangar. Could be tricky."

(ooo)

"What's this?" One of the Simulants—his face a metal skull—he'd given up on his synth skin and was wearing what was left of it as an ascot around his matte grey neck— stepped up to Ace. "Who're yew two."

"Simulants." Ace replied.

The skin-less Simulant considered this. "You could be lying."

Ace shrugged at the dead Simulant. "I shot him."

"That means nothing." Skin-less replied. The Simulants behind him muttered agreement. "Them holograms kill Agnoids down on Tween all the time."

"I shot him on the Silo, not Tween." Ace countered.

Another Simulant piped up. "That's a good point, Fred."

Fred narrowed his eyes at Ace. Ace narrowed his own right back. "Yew gonna kill any other o' my crew?"

"Most likely." Ace replied.

"Eh." Fred shrugged. "That's all right then." He turned and walked back to the bay doors. The rest of the Simulants followed him.

"Lets get killing." Ace grabbed Bexley's shoulder.

Bexley resisted. "How are we going to find them?" He asked in a whisper.

Ace inclined his head at the Simulants, absorbed with organizing themselves into sloppy ranks of two and marching into the transport bay. "We let that lot go first then we use the scanners. We'll find Cat. GELF-Cats have a unique signature. And where Cat is, Kris is."

Bexley frowned. "Kristine Kochanski?"

(ooo)

Rimmer rubbed the sweat off his hands. He sat in his lead lined suit, back up against the Wildfire landing gear. "Are the Simulants all over Red Dwarf, Holly?"

"Yes." Holly replied from the diagnostics screen above the Wildfire's docking station.

Rimmer stood with difficulty and started to extricate himself from his suit. "No point in this, then."

He heard the distant sound of gunfire. The sound plucked out a note of excitement in him. The itch tingled in his fingers. Rimmer gripped Wildfire's hard steel hull and tried to calm his breathing. With an effort that left him faint he shook off the feeling and grabbed up one of Bob's needles.

He stared at it. With quick movements he slid the needle into his vein and prayed he'd get Ace, not more madness.

Before the needle hit the ground, he woke up a coward. The sound of fighting—Holly's ominous words—left him feeling like something evil and black was crawling up his spine and sinking sharp claws into his soft middle. He couldn't move, and when he did it was only because he promised himself he'd _get the smeg away_.

Rimmer looked up at the Wildfire. He tread over to the heavy cabling coupling the Wildfire and Red Dwarf—allowing Red Dwarf to use the Wildfire's PIE. With practiced movements he began to unlatch the safeties and pull it apart.

Another volley of gunfire shook his concentration.

He stared at the bay doors.

If he locked them shut—manually—from the inside… it would take ages for anyone to get through.

(ooo)

A muffled 'wumph' sounded in the service tunnel. Kochanski didn't turn around, figuring it for a sudden air-pressure change further down.

"Officer bud-babe." Cat pulled on Kochanski's sleeve.

She turned, "Cat I told you not to—" She was staring right into Dave's dark brown eyes. She squeaked. Then threw her arms around him, kissing his temple. "Dave! You're alive!"

"Kris—" Dave began. He looked stricken. He turned away, forcefully.

"What? Dave?" She reached for him.

"Kristine." Arnold's voice. Kochanski glanced over. The hair, the way he tilted his head... It wasn't Arnold. It was Ace.

Kochanski blinked. "I thought you died."

"One of me did."

"Oh," Kochanski replied, unconvinced.

"This isn't your Dave." Ace's hand rested on Dave's shoulder— his back was turned to them both. "His name is Bexley."

Kochanski's knees weakened. "No. But Dave—"

"He's… part of the Silo now."

"What?" She groped for the service tunnel wall.

"James—the Captain of the Silo—he's removed Dave's… consciousness." Ace paled. "He's part of the Silo mainframe."

Kochanski's undergraduate supplied the theoretical explanation, even as the rest of her rejected it. "No."

"I'm sorry."

Kochanski turned to the other Dave. "But—"

Ace shook his head. "A hologram. His name's Bexley."

Bexley glanced up at Kochanski. "There may be a way to save yer Dave."

"What? I don't understand." Kochanski pressed her hand against her temple.

"What's not to understand." Cat jumped in. "He's not your Dave." He pointed at Bexley. "He's another one. And you'd know that if you humans could smell anything more subtle then a punch in the nose."

Ace stepped over to Cat and shoved him against the wall. "You!"

"Who?" Cat screeched.

"I should break your neck—" Ace pressed the blade of his arm against Cat's neck.

The Bexley roused and brushed past Kochanski. "Ace, woah! Wait." He grabbed Ace's back.

"Let go, bud!" Cat yowled. "You're creasing my collar!"

"I must ask you to stop choking Cat." Kryten bobbed up to Ace's side. "He is your friend, sir."

"He isn't my friend, he's an Omega agent." Ace pressed into Cat's throat. Cat gurgled.

"Ace. Yer not bein' fair… Cat helped. He's not like Kel, or any of them others." Bexley's grip slipped to Ace's arm. "I know yer angry about Dave but—"

"How is it any of your business?" Ace turned on Bexley, letting Cat go.

Bexley held up his hands. "Mate. Listen to yerself."

Bexley stood his ground as Ace stepped up to him, his hands clenched, their faces inches apart. "What do you want to do about it?"

"Nothin'." Bexley opened his hands. "It's not you, yeh know that."

"You don't know who…" Ace's hands lifted, he looked about fit to tear Bexley's head off. Instead he slammed his fist into the side wall, denting it. The sound of it echoed through the service tunnel.

Kochanski shrugged off her shock. "The Simulants!"

Ace slumped against the wall, hiding his face in his hands. After a moment his hand disappeared into his flight suit jacket. He pulled a gun.

Everyone held their breath. He passed it to Bexley, giving the man a long stare. Bexley took it without a word.

Ace straightened and looked up at the vertical service tunnel and ladder above them. "Where does that lead, Krytes?"

Kryten eyed Ace. "Just outside the hangar… sir."

(ooo)

Kochanski turned the release locks on the access panel. It slid open and she slid out into the dark corridor beyond, grateful to stand and breathe fresh air. Bexley jumped down behind her. Ace stumbled after him, pale and withdrawn—not anything like she'd remembered him, although that had been another him, or something, she wasn't quite sure. Kryten clanged out behind Ace. And then a series of soft clinks as Bob and his posse zipped down the wall on magnetic treads and onto the floor. The skutters fanned out in a perimeter, turning on their eye-lights to scan the corridor.

"Why's it dark?" Kochanski brought Holly's wrist com close to her face.

"Power's been cut to environmental functions." Holly tilted his head.

"Wait. Where's Cat?" Kochanski glanced back at the access panel. "Bob, could you look in there please?"

Bob's headlight scanned the opening. A pair of eyes reflected the light.

"Get out, Cat," Kochanski said.

"Naw," replied Cat. "I think it's safer in here." He glared pointedly at Ace.

"We need to keep together." Kochanski started to step back into the tunnel.

Bexley caught her shoulder. "Let him go."

"What?" Kochanski shook his hand off. "No."

Bexley watched her, his expression knowing and tragic. "Let him go," he repeated.

Kochanski pursed her lips, vexed. "Care to let me in on your secret?"

"Cat did a lot to save Dave, Kris." Bexley glanced away from the access panel. "Ace explained it to me, years ago." He looked over at Ace who was slumped against the wall, back turned to them. "I forgot it. I forgot a lot. But I remember now. Cat was Ace's inside man when he stole Red Dwarf to protect Dave. He arranged it. Ace wasn't bein' fair before, harpin' on Cat." His gaze met Kochanski's. "I've got a feelin' whatever happens next will bring us back to the Silo. Cat can't go back there. James will kill him. He's safer here, in the service tunnels."

"With Simulants crawling all over Red Dwarf?"

Bexley chuckled. "If GELF-cats are good at anythin', it's hidin' and survivin'."

Kochanski turned to the access panel opening. Cat still hovered behind it, waiting. "Did you do that? Help Dave?"

Cat slipped further back into the tunnel, his claws clicking against the metal walls.

"Thanks," Kochanski offered, to the dark.

"Seeya, Cat. Keep yourself safe," Bexley said. He looked like he wanted to say something more. He seemed to think better of it and turned to pick up the access panel instead.

"Good luck, bud-babe." Cat's voice echoed out.

Bexley slotted the panel back in place. "Let's go."

Kochanski pinched her eyes. Dave. Now Cat. She breathed. She felt for the wall, and followed it till she came to the intersection between two corridors.

"Hol?" she asked.

"Right," Holly replied.

She went right and continued for fifty meters. The bay access doors were lit by a length of EL tape emergency light. She caught and turned the door release. Nothing happened.

"Holly…?"

"I can't override, Kris," he replied. "It's been locked manually from the inside."

Kris shook her head. "That's not possible. Only Arnold—"

"It isn't possible he shut us out?" Ace said, waking up from whatever stupor he was in. "For that craven worm, it's more then possible, it's _probable_."

"No. Ace—" Kochanski retried the lock. "He isn't like that anymore—"

"Righty-o. Because being murderous instead of cowardly is an improvement on the whole 'caring about other people thing' for him."

"Talking about yourself or him?" Kochanski glared at Ace. He'd shot right past irritating to hateful. "When he left he was trying to save us all. He was taking some sort of drug to keep himself— That's it." She snapped her fingers. "He must have got the dose wrong."

"How more meaning-less does it get?" Ace scoffed. "He's only brave when he's popped the right pill—"

"Not helpful." Kochanski held up her hand to silence Ace. "Holly, tell Bob to patch me into the docking bay intercom system." After a moment, she spoke and heard it echoed back, muffled by the bay doors. "Arnold we're at the door. We need you to open it—"

"Miss Kochanski." Kryten tugged at her sleeve. "I'm afraid _that_ was a bit too loud—"

Kochanski turned.

Two Simulants grinned at them from the corner. Something hard hit Kochanski in the chest, slamming her to the floor. She stared up at Bexley—he'd shoved her down.

Overhead a volley of shots thudded into the steel wall, each one spit up a shower of sparks.

Kryten collapsed beside them. Kochanski couldn't see Ace.

The skutters returned fire, sending the Simulants ducking behind the corner.

"Kryten?" Kochanski called, reaching out to Kryten's still form. White fluid pooled underneath the mechanoid, his staring eyes blank. Kris grabbed the mechanoid's shoulder and shook him. He didn't move. She pressed her hands to her lips. Wet trailed over them. _No_.

"Kris." Bexley whispered into her ear. "We've got to get through that door. _Think_."

Kochanski closed her eyes, eerily calm. "It's… It's a manual lock. The only way to get through it is to cut our way through. We don't have the equipment."

"Can we go back to the service tunnel?"

Kochanski looked back the way they came, the corridor illuminated by an arc of skutter head lights.

One of the Simulants took a shot from around the corner, taking out a skutter. In retaliation the rest opened fire, managing to clip the Simulant and send it clanking back for cover.

"I don't think we'd make it." Kochanski said. "Arnold's got to open those doors."


	28. Rimmer

-1

Red Dwarf Fanfic: Last Humans

Chapter 26: Rimmer

Summary: All the Listers come together in their mutual appreciation of one particular smeg head. Rimmer remembers Ace's secret.

Warnings: Language, violence, character death

Beta: Rack

Chapter Rating: T(13 )

(ooo)

Chapter 26: Rimmer

(ooo)

//Ship Serial No: Silo INDP556790

//Ship's Time: 13:13-06.04-003.000.345

//AI-List-Silo: PIE INITIALIZATION COMPLETE

//AI-List-Silo: AWAITING ACTIVATION

Lister woke up in his bunk on Red Dwarf. His head felt like the inside of a tuba. He clutched his stomach and rolled out of bed, landing with a thump. "Don't remember drinkin' last night."

"Yeh didn't."

His voice. His own voice. Lister glanced up and pain echoed through his eyes from the motion.

In the regulation folding chair by the regulation table was another Dave Lister. He stared at Lister—without a great deal of interest—as he shuffled a deck of cards. "Yer the new one." He nodded at an empty seat at the table. "Sit and have a pint."

Lister followed… Lister's instructions and sat. He glanced around for the promised pint.

"Think it," Lister said. His brow wrinkled and a pitcher with two pint glasses appeared by his elbow.

"Boss." Lister could use a drink. "So how do yeh know I wasn't drinkin'? I'm hallucinatin', aren't I?"

"Naw. This is real. Ish, I mean. Realish."

"I'm on the Dwarf, right?"

"Not the physical Dwarf, mate."

"So… where?"

"The mental Dwarf, yeah? It's where we all go."

"Go? Where?"

"When we become part of the PIE."

Lister blinked. "I'm dead?"

"For the most part." Lister took a swallow of beer. "But it's not bad. Beer, curry, slobbin'—"

"What about Rimmer?"

Lister choked on his beer. "What about that git?"

Lister stood, slopping his beer. "The Silo—" He looked around. "Got to get out."

"No out to get to." Lister gazed mournfully at Lister's spilled beer. "'Sides, yeh got everyhin' yeh need." He winked.

"Dave?"

Lister's stomach fluttered. That voice. He turned.

Kristine Kochanski—the dark haired, delicate one, the one with the good sense of humour—stood in the doorway. She wore his favourite zero-Gee football jersey. It had been Jim-Bexley Speed's. It fell to her knees. "I just had to get my tooth-brush from my quarters." She smiled. It rolled over him like a super-nova.

(ooo)

Rimmer stumbled to unlatch the second-to-last hydraulic hitch keeping the Wildfire. He remembered how to fly it. He wouldn't be able to use the PIE—not without Lister to pilot it and only booby-trapped StarTransit™ hubs to choose from—but he could jump to another dimension. A quiet one.

Or, maybe, he'd meet up with _his_ Dave. Rimmer shook his head. Millions-to-one the odds on that and he wasn't one to entertain faint hopes. His best bet was to get out of Red Dwarf's docking bay and _run_.

He managed to release the catch and turned to the second-to-last hitch. As he moved off, his trouser leg caught on the part of the landing gear. He stumbled and fell. Pain lanced through his head. He'd slammed it into the landing gear's steel shank.

Rimmer sat back on his haunches, dazed.

(ooo)

"Kris—how?" Lister sat down on Rimmer's bunk. Well, it wasn't really Rimmer's bunk, because Rimmer didn't exist in this—mental—Red Dwarf. Kris sat beside him.

Lister felt electrified, being so close to her. "I never thought I'd see yeh again."

"I never thought I'd see you either."

"How'd yeh get here?"

Kris glanced around. "I don't know. I don't remember."

"Doesn't matter." Lister caught her hand. "So we're goin' out, then?" He nodded at his jersey.

"As far as I know," she giggled.

"Do yeh love me?"

She looked at him quizzically. "Do you love me?"

Lister looked down at her hand. He couldn't answer. His throat closed off. "I dunno," he choked out. "I haven't seen yeh in so long."

"You're here now, Dave." She set her head against his shoulder.

Dave hesitated. Her against him, it felt good. But a 'somethin's off' feeling crawled up and down his skin. He felt dazed, like something was running interference on his thoughts. He jumped to his feet. "Naw. This isn't—it isn't right." He glanced around the bunk.

"What's wrong?" Kris asked, leaning forward.

"There's something' more to this. I gotta figure it out."

(ooo)

Arnold J. Rimmer ducked into the Starbug command deck, brimming with self-importance. He found the bridge in the usual, space-scum enabled disarray. "Get your boots off the consol. If you get dirt in the circuits, we'll end up flying into a black hole or something similarly catastrophic." He swatted at Lister's calves.

Lister grinned at him and shifted his boots off the consol onto the floor. "There," he said, pointing at the forward monitor. "Lookit that.

Rimmer squinted at it. "It looks like a corkscrew."

"I got the manifest." Lister tapped one of his side screens. "It's the Extensis. Pleasure port to the hoi-polloi." He rubbed his hands together. "Good pickin's."

"To think. I, Arnold J. Rimmer, former top-flight JMC material, relegated by fate's fickle hand to the status of scavenger—"

"Yeh? In what universe were you anythin' more then a vending unit repairman?"

"That's rich coming from a man who can get curry stains down the _back_ of his shirts," Rimmer groused, plunking himself down in the secondary information officer's chair.

Lister ignored him. "I'm hopin' for a stash of pompadoms. What yeh want, Kel?"

The big orangumatt GELF turned from the navicomp to glance at Lister in the right-hand pilot chairs. He offered a series of clicks, whistles and grunts.

"All that, eh?" Lister said, picking his teeth with a toe-nail clipping he'd saved. Rimmer grimaced and felt a bit of his hologramatic lunch come up for an encore. He knew he shouldn't have volunteered to leave Red Dwarf to be part of another smash and grab looting excursion on the Starbug.

Lister placed his toenail in his pocket for safe-keeping. "I think I'll be leaving you to watch _Gelfs Gone Wild(er)_ by yerself if yeh find it."

The orangumatt Kel shrugged and turned back to the navicomp. His hairy fingers flew over the controls. They looked—to Rimmer—something like ten mossy rebar pipes doing ballet. He shivered. Something about Kel always made Rimmer nervous. Lister had bought Kel's story about boarding Red Dwarf for salvage, getting stranded by his treacherous relatives and living alone in Red Dwarf's cargo hold for eight months before Lister found him. But Rimmer wasn't so sure the big orangumatt was completely… trustworthy.

"What about yeh? Eh?" Lister rapped his studded gloves against Rimmer's consol.

Rimmer jerked out of his thoughts and tried to parse what Lister was asking. When he couldn't, he put on his best 'how dare you interrupt my important work' attitude: "Lister. I'm looking through Holly's mission reports to find any mention of that mysterious transmission signal—originating in a thoroughly improbable manner from Red Dwarf itself—that you keep assuring me you've registered on your scanner-scope." Rimmer closed his on-screen copy of 'Telephone Poles— Modern Man's Answer to the Monolith', and pretended to scroll through Holly's entries.

"I registered another just last week, man. Came right from the crew quarters. I'm sure it means somethin'—"

Rimmer rolled his eyes. "Yes. I am too. I'm sure it means you've picked the lock on the medicinal supplies cabinet again."

Lister snorted and shrugged. "Whatever, yeah? We'll figure it out later." He slapped his consol, sitting forward out of his chair. "This is excitin'! Our first salvage in months. An' it's a good one. It's like Christmas."

"My family didn't celebrate Christmas."

"What? Fun isn't holy?"

"No, Lister. Only pain is holy."

"What if yeh think pain is fun?"

"Then it's not holy."

Lister grinned at Rimmer. "Yeh know, that explains so much about yeh."

"Just like the stains on your pants explain so much about you."

Lister turned back to his primary pilot's consol, opening the throttle and timing the thrusters to take the Star-bug in a gentle arc towards the Extensis.

Lister looked back at Rimmer. Rimmer knew Lister was hoping to see a flash of jealousy at his skill—Rimmer'd been certified, barely, to fly the 'Bug, but he was a terrible pilot. He'd always thought he was good, great even, but Lister's consistent ability in avoid asteroids and small moons had showed him up. A tad. Perhaps. Rimmer slumped in his chair.

Something impacted the hull with a bang: Starbug lurched. Rimmer caught his arm-rest, keeping himself upright. The Bug jerked again: The floor rushed up to meet Rimmer. He had just enough time to get his hands under his chest and keep his jaw from cracking into the steel. He waited a beat, stunned. He pushed himself to his knees, sneering. "So much for your skill, eh, Lister?"

But Lister wasn't listening.

The forward screen was black.

_So what, more space_. Rimmer caught his chair and hauled himself to his feet, sitting back.

Lister reversed the throttle. The 'Bug jerked aft and Rimmer barked a shin on his consol. "What are you doing, you goited space hippy?"

"Don't yeh see that?"

"See what?" Rimmer glanced back at the screen. It dawned on him. _No stars_.

"Somethin's out there. It's latched on to us."

Kel grunted and clicked.

"Yeah," Lister replied, his eyes still latched onto the empty black _thing_. He popped open the mining laser controls, angled them outwards and fired.

Rimmer nearly pissed his pants.

The blue stream of light illuminated a front hull like a scythe. It swooped down on them as they looked up from below.

The 'Bug kicked up and forward, and began to list to starboard. Lister tried to correct it but before he could figure out which thruster to fire, Starbug shuddered. A wrenching moan echoed through the control centre. The 'Bug came to an eerie halt.

"The air lock." Lister pushed himself off his chair. "They'll come in through there. Get the bazookoids!" He grabbed his own from the rack on the cock pit's back hull. Kel did the same.

Rimmer watched them both, paralyzed.

"Get up Rimmer!" Lister screamed at him. "No time for yer nonsense."

Rimmer got up and walked, stiff legged, to the rack. He caught up a bazookoid and cradled it awkwardly in his arms.

Lister caught his shoulder and pushed him towards Starbug's galley. "Get moving."

Rimmer walked stiff-legged. His feet and hands tingled; his head felt like a balloon filled near to bursting. Everything slowed down.

"Rimmer." Lister looked him in the eye. "I need you to pull one of those metal crates down while Kel and me cover the air-lock."

Rimmer stared at him. Then turned towards the storage racks. Just as his fingertips hit the cool metal of the nearest crate, his brain kicked into overdrive, calculating the nearest hiding place.

He turned to run.

Kel raised his bazookoid and with a quick side-swipe smashed the fat end into Lister's skull. Rimmer gaped.

Kel stared at Rimmer for a long moment. The orangumatt jerked at Rimmer, growling.

Rimmer dropped his bazookoid, feeling a warm wetness trail down his pants. The orangumatt laughed. Rimmer shook with humiliation.

Kel caught the front of Lister's jacket and hauled the man up like a sack of potatoes. Then he turned, his back to Rimmer, to await whatever was muscling the air-lock open.

Rimmer watched Kel's shaggy back. He looked at the Bazookoid at his feet.

_What are you thinking? You a hero? That hulking shag rug just grunted at you and you pissed yourself. Do what you're best at. Run, Rimsey._

Rimmer ran.

(ooo)

"Where are you going, Dave?" Kris called after him.

"Explorin'." Lister glanced back. "I'll be back. No worries." He exited his bunk room.

Before it had been kitty-corner to the bulkhead. Now it was just one in a long string of rooms that stretched in each direction as far as Lister could see.

"Erm," he said, turning one direction then another. He decided on left.

(ooo)

"Don't run," Rimmer muttered, staring at the second-to-last hydraulic hitch keeping the Wildfire stationary.

He rolled over to his knees. Blood streaked his hands; he could feel it oozing down the side of his head. He pressed his fingers against the open cut.

Disgusted, he slammed his fist against the hydraulic release. It opened and the hitch started to unlatch.

He was far more fragile now then he had been _then_. He curled over himself, biting his fist as he was rocked by waves of old humiliation. Hard-light gave second and third chances, not like flesh and blood. And even with second and third chances he hadn't been able to take any chance at all.

The intercom buzzed to life. Kochanski: "Arnold, please! Open the doors. I can't talk long. Please!"

Rimmer was a lot more people then when he'd dropped the Bazookoid. He was original Rimmer most of all, the Rimmer that had been almost possibly perhaps ready to give up everything for Lister. No. _Dave_. Even though everything _then_ meant the approval of his family. Well, his mom.

He was Ace, too. A little bit of Ace, anyway. Maybe a lot, actually.

And he was also that very dark part of himself that couldn't care less. That craved violence and fear and pain. Inflicting it as much as fighting it.

He feared that dark part too. If he gave into it, it would give him the strength to survive, but it would destroy everything he wanted to survive for. Not that he knew he _could_ find it again, it felt so very far away right then.

Rimmer pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes.

"That hippy space scum killed my camphor wood chest!" he screamed back at wherever the intercom was coming from. "He's lying about loving me to save his own smegging skin." He pounded his fist against the Wildfire's chassis. "He doesn't deserve to li—"

"Arnold." Kochanski's voice sparked over the intercom—almost as if she'd heard him. "Open those bay doors or I'll—"

A burst of gunfire cut Kochanski's threat off. It echoed, eerily, from outside and over the intercom. A scraping sound echoed from the intercom, then another voice came on. Dave. "Arn, if yeh can hear me, we're dying out here. Open the doors, yeah?"

Rimmer held his breath. Dave. It became real very fast. Dave was out there. About to be killed by Simulants. Rimmer was about to loose more then he'd ever thought possible. He was at that same spot, that same spot as the Rimmer who'd known Kel, who'd pissed his pants and run. And he knew running lead to a wasted life of regret.

Still, he couldn't move. To run or to open the doors.

Ace's voice—'You and me are the same. I just shoot a little straighter'—echoed in his mind.

He hadn't understood it on Tween, but now that he was a couple tenths Ace… he remembered.

It was John that had taught Ace to shoot. John who'd never gotten married, not in Ace's dimension at least, not on Gnostitarian Io. John who'd had time for his little brother. After Ace'd got set back a grade—he'd to repeat Junior D—John had decided to take him in for a bit to let their mom cool off.

Rimmer remembered. As a kid he'd thought John was about the coolest person ever. And John had taken Arnold to a local shooting range. John had been a good shot, better then good. Arnold had been amazed. And then John had handed over his gun.

Arnold took it, almost with reverence. A gun was about as macho as anything could get. And for the first time, Arnold was included.

John had got him some goggles and a new target. He gave Arnold pointers how to hold and aim and then told him to give it a go.

Arnold had. And he'd sucked. He didn't hit the target once.

He'd gotten so angry with himself that he'd thrown down his goggles, screamed—"There's something wrong with your stupid gun!"—and stormed off.

Sitting on a bench, he hadn't even looked up as John sat down with him. Arnold had steeled himself for silent contempt, mockery, even accusations at his failure.

"You did good." John said, simply.

Arnold had been so shocked at that, he hadn't answered for a moment. He figured John was mocking him somehow, but he didn't understand how. "I didn't hit it at all."

"True." John leaned on his knees. "But you missed one less time."

Arnold stared at his brother. "What?"

John smiled. "When I first started shooting, I missed every time. I was the worst at it in my whole boys troop. I must have missed a couple thousand times. And each time I missed, I got one miss closer to hitting. Every failure is a step towards success. There are lots of people—including our mom—who will honour your successes, Arn. But only you can honour your failures and recognize them for what they are. Little pieces of success."

Over the years Ace had thought a lot about what John had said. The memory was clear and distinct, cherished. Strong enough to have transferred over to Rimmer fully-formed, not just as half-understood intuition or unaccounted for knowledge.

Ace had said it was his willingness to fight that had separated him from Rimmer. And Rimmer could see that now for what it was, macho posturing. What had really separated them was Ace's willingness to _fail_.

Ace'd been taught to honour his failures as successes.

Rimmer shook his head. "That cheating git."

In the silence Rimmer stood, unlocked the final hydraulic hitch and watched it descend into the floor. He looked up at the bay lights, then past the landing strip lights to the huge bay doors.

(ooo)

Lister stopped by another door to another bunk, identical to the one he'd woken up in. He'd checked. Beyond it the corridor stretched an infinite number of identical bunks. Each one with it's own Kris, waiting. The sight of that had sent Lister staggering. Each Kris had said the same thing: 'are you back now, Dave?'

It was all cracked.

He hadn't made any progress figuring it out. He was tired, headachy and had a wicked craving for madras sauce.

Lister leaned against the wall and slid down till he was sitting.

He thought about a tall glass of madras. Nothing appeared.

Not only was he stuck in this trippy, folded in on itself universe, but it didn't seem to work right for him, either.

Lister leaned his head back against the wall and stared at the ceiling.

A trap door he'd never noticed before swung open. His own face appeared in the gap, grinning down at him. A rope ladder snaked out till the last rung was eye height.

"Hi," he said, to himself.

"Grab hold. Me name's Kel."

"Kel?" Lister asked.

"No point callin' meself Dave Lister when there's about fifty thousand of us, yeah?"

Lister considered this. "True." He stood and caught the rope ladder. "So why Kel?" Lister started to climb.

Kel caught his arm and helped him through the trap door. "Kel was the one who betrayed me."

"Erm."

"It's about the only thing separates us. So who betrayed you?"

"Hollister."

"Yeh gotteh be kiddn' me." Kel snorted. "He's dead."

"Not dead enough." Lister glanced down the tunnel. "Where does this go?"

"To the Alpha. Alpha Lister."

(ooo)

Kochanski flicked her wrist in disgust. "Arnold's not responding."

"Smeg." Bexley crouched beside Kochanski, loading his rifle. The skutters were holding the line, just. Bexley had wrenched a built in metal bench off its moorings and fashioned makeshift cover for Kochanski just outside the bay doors. Ace lay against one side of it, comatose with anger or conflict or something. Kochanski grimaced at his bacofoil clad back and turned to Bexley.

"So this is it then?" She slotted a final round into her rifle and pulled back the bolt.

Bexley looked at her. "Yeah."

Kochanski tilted her head. "I don't even know you."

"Yeah." Bexley replied. "I know you."

"You do?" Kochanski chanced a look at him. His expression reminded her of a post-'Days of our Lives'-marathon Dave.

A line of bullets spat up sparks by the bench's overturned leg. Kochanski braced the rifle against her shoulder and took aim over the top of the bench. She unloaded her clip in the general direction of the Simulants. Bexley stood beside her, fully exposed, and unloaded his own gun—voxel calibre and far more effective.

The skutters continued to pound away at the Simulants, their weapons blasting to a rhythm.

The Simulants retreated. The skutter's weapons silenced.

Kochanski and Bexley ducked back behind cover.

Kochanski heard the beat first. "What?"

"What what?" Bexley asked.

"The sound. Hear it?"

Kochanski peeked over the bench, watching the far end of the corridor. First one pair, then two, three, four… dozens of Simulants marched in. The line of skutters started up their weapons. In seconds most of their defensive line was flattened. Only Bob and three others were left. The Simulants regrouped. The next offensive would take all the skutters out.

Kochanski ducked back behind the bench.

She looked at Bexley.

The grim set to his jaw made her throat twist. She looked at her rifle. No ammo. She scrabbled around for _anything_, a knife, a crowbar…

Bexley caught her frantic hands and held them. "Stay behind me." He picked up his gun.

"They can kill you, can't they?" She looked at him.

"Yeah."

She closed her eyes. If they were going to die, best die quick. Get the Simulants to shoot them dead. Kochanski picked up her own empty rifle. "I'll stay beside you—"

Simulant feet marched.

Kochanski stood.

Bexley managed to pull her behind him just as they opened fire on the skutters.

Kochanski felt Bexley take a hit, then another. He staggered back, and Kochanski turned to catch him.

A bazookoid's percussive shockwave rattled Kochanski's sinuses.

She glanced up.

Rimmer stood—in the opening doorway—in full view of the Simulant army, unloading a bazookoid into their ranks.

He stank of piss and sweat. Kochanski saw him chance a glance at Bexley—hunched over and bleeding—and his stance hardened.

She felt a bit sick seeing that. _It isn't Dave_.

"Get through," Rimmer shouted at them.

Kochanski didn't turn away. Bexley roused himself and grabbed her arm.

"No!" Kochanski protested. "Kryten!" She reached for the mechanoid.

Bexley pulled harder. "We'll come back for him, Kris. He can be fixed. When it's safe."

Kochanski let Bexley push her through the doors. He turned to get Ace.

The doors started to close. "Bexley!" Kochanski shouted before a volley of Simulant gunfire sent her scurrying behind them for cover.

Bexley shoved Ace through.

Rimmer kept his mettle for a moment more, then he broke and ran screaming behind them.

Bexley caught Rimmer's arms and pulled.

Simulant fire razored into them both.

The doors closed.

(ooo)

Inside a supplies closet Alpha Lister sat, cross-legged, on the ground. Another him sat on a bean-bag chair in the shape of a squat banana. This Lister looked to be centuries old. White dreads, eyes blued by cataracts, a few fingers missing, his skin spotted and pale. He wore a tattered copy of Lister's old leather jacket. "Yeah, yeah," Old Lister said. "They call me the 'Alpha'."

"Why?"

"Cause I'm the first, yeh see? Yeah, yeah."

"The first clone?"

Beside Lister, Kel nodded. "Yeah. He's the first. After Bexley."

Lister looked at Alpha. "So what'd yeh bring me here for?"

Alpha paused, leaning back. "Everythin' around yeh is a construct."

"Yeah? I knew that."

"Good, yeah. Yeah." Alpha nodded. "Yeh gotteh get yer way out."

"How?"

The Alpha stared past Lister's shoulder. "I tell yeh. Each one a' yeh. I've seen yeh pass through. And yer all a bit different. Slight. Yeh know?" He squeezed his thumb and forefinger together then opened them a hair. "In the beginnin' she was a right obstacle. I loved her, yeh see? It was so fresh in me mind. And gettin' her back was everythin' I ever wanted. At that time. But the others." Alpha considered, stroking his face. "I think about the twentieth thousand one. Kel." He turned to look at Kel.

"Yeah, me," Kel replied.

"That's when she started to be less important. Less of an obstacle, yeah?"

Kel nodded. "I didn't spend my first months just havin' sex with Kris. Like the rest." Kel grinned. "Maybe a week. Then I started teh think… somethin's wrong."

"Yeah, yeah." Alpha nodded. "Yeh young ones didn't get wrapped up as much." Alpha turned to Lister. "Yeh only spent a few minutes."

"That's because I don't want h—" Dave stopped. His words had tumbled out before he realized. "I mean—"

"Yeah, yeah." Alpha winked. "Yeh don't. None of us do. But it took some a' us half a million years to realize."

"Erm," Dave replied.

"I miss Rimmer." Kel shook his head ruefully. "I don't know why, but I do. That's what happened, yeh know? I woke up one day and Kris wasn't enough. I have these dreams a' him—"

"You too?" Lister blinked.

"He hates Arnold, yeah?" Alpha went on. "I think it was fun for him. Teh do what he did. Set us up, yeah? With neither of us knowin' our history."

"Yeah?" Lister grimaced. "So how do I get out?"

The Alpha shrugged. "Don't know if there's an out to get to."

"Smeg." Lister slumped.

"But maybe we can control the PIE. Altogether, yeah? And we'll bring everyone _in_."

(ooo)

Someone was screaming.

Kochanski realized it was her.

Rimmer lay on the floor of the hangar in a pool of red paint. Kochanski stared, unbelieving. Where'd the paint come from?

Bexley tore off his jacket and pulled it apart. He folded up a sleeve and pressed the makeshift compress against the wound in Rimmer's side. He snapped his fingers in front of Kochanski's face. "Put pressure on the wound."

Kochanski followed his lead, taking over the compress. Her mind felt like a skating rink, thoughts slipping around, sliding into each other, making no sense.

Rimmer stirred under her hands. "I saved him," he said, looking at Bexley's back. "Dave."

Bexley didn't turn. Why would he?

Kochanski felt sick again. Rimmer jerked against her hands. She held his shoulder. "You did," she said. "You saved Dave."

Rimmer relaxed.

The smell of his bowels giving out was too much. Kochanski gagged. Even as her stomach convulsed, she did her best to keep pressure on his wound. Bexley had instructed her.

Bexley turned back. "Smeg," he said, looking at Rimmer. He knelt beside him, fished under his jaw with his fingers, sat there for what seemed like ages, and turned to Kochanski. "He's dead."

"But I kept the pressure on," Kochanski replied.

Bexley stared at her.

"I kept it on," she repeated, her eyes welling for no reason she could understand. He caught her in a hug, pulling her away. She wouldn't go. "I can't, he'll die—"

"Shh." Bexley caught her hands, pulling them away. "Yeh did good. But yeh've got to let go, now."

"But—"

"I'll kill that son of a bitch!" Ace leapt up and grabbed Rimmer by the neck, throttling him. "How dare you smeggin' fail me!"

Kochanski rose. Bexley gently pressed her back down and turned back towards Ace.

"What yeh think yer doin'?"

"I'm killing this worthless sad-sack piece of crap—"

Rimmer flopped in Ace's hands like a rag doll.

"Yer desecratin' a body, yeh mental-case." Bexley grabbed Ace, forcing him to let go of Rimmer. Ace resisted, pushing Bexley away. Bexley staggered back and his gun fell from his pocket and skittered across the floor. He recovered, stepped close and slapped Ace.

Ace slipped and fell.

Bexley stood over Ace. "Keep it together."

Ace turned over onto his hands and knees. "I don't know how much longer—"

A click interrupted them.

Kochanski glanced up. Ackerman stood five meters distant. He'd levelled the gun at Bexley.

"The cat has caught a worm," he grinned, flashing his teeth all the way to the molars.

"What's this then?" Bexley snorted.

"I'm arresting you for seditious activity." Ackerman waved his gun. "I believe you're about to steal Red Dwarf property."

"What were you doing here then?" Kochanski's voice was shaking. She forced herself to stand.

"Waiting for my quarry to fall into my trap," Ackerman sneered, and flicked his wrist.

"Or yer here to steal Red Dwarf property an' escape yerself," Bexley laughed.

"Voxel calibre, Bexley." Ace warned as he picked himself up off the ground.

"Rimmer." Ackerman's grin stretched wider. "My old sparring partner."

"Ah," said Ace, his hands raised. "You've got me there. Look… crazy fellow…" Ace swallowed. "It sounds like it's me you're really after so why don't you let those two go? We'll share a smoke and then try and kill each other in ghastly ways."

Ackerman's eyes flicked between Rimmer and Bexley. A muffled 'wumph' came from the bay doors. Kochanski turned to look. The surface buckled.

"What do you say?" Ace tilted his raised hands outwards. "Put down the gun. It'll be mano a mano. You and me, alone."

Ackerman set his gun on the ground.

"Kris," Bexley whispered. "We gottah go." He pulled her up, catching her around the shoulders.

"There's fight in your eyes." Ackerman grinned at Ace. Ace smiled back at Ackerman. They started to circle each other.

"Let's go," Bexley said.

"I can't—" Kochanski began.

"It's okay." Bexley stroked her cheek with his fingers. "We hafta go now."

"He's dead."

"He was resurrected once. Who knows what the PIE can do." Bexley held out his hand. "But if you stay here, he stays dead."

She caught his hand. He lifted her to her feet.

Bexley walked past Ackerman but stopped when he came to Ace. Still holding Kochanski's hand, he caught Ace's neck, turning his attention. "I'll be back." Bexley said. "I'll finish it for yeh." He stared at Ace. Pulled him closer—their foreheads touched. "That's me promise. Unionist honour. Dignity in the End Times." He turned to Kochanski. "Let's go."


	29. Dave

Red Dwarf Fanfic: Last Humans

Chapter 27: Dave

Summary: Everything comes down to a single question.

Warnings: Language, violence, character death

Beta: Rack

Chapter Rating: T(13 )

(ooo)

Chapter 27: Dave

(ooo)

//Ship Serial No: Silo INDP556790

//Ship's Time: 13:15-06.04-003.000.345

//AI-List-Silo: PIE ACTIVATION COMPLETE

//AI-List-Silo: LOCATION UNKNOWN

"What do we do now?" Kochanski asked. She and Bexley had left Red Dwarf's docking bay in the Wildfire. Red Dwarf's distended underbelly hung above them. Beyond it, rising over the far edge of Red Dwarf's bulk, was the sickle-shaped Silo. She crouched behind the cockpit chair in the closet-sized crawl space. A thick film of stickiness coated the floor. Kochanski swallowed her disgust.

"Should we use Ace's light bee?" she offered.

"Ace's light bee?" Bexley asked. "Ace is on Red Dwarf."

"No. The other Ace. I have it right here." She fished in her jacket and brought out the hard lump of metal. "There."

Bexley grinned. "Yeah, yeah! That'll help." He picked it up and set it down beside the PIE engine. "I can't pilot the PIE. But maybe…"

"What?" Kochanski asked.

"We keep out of sight, right? And when James activates his PIE, I'll turn ours on and it'll resonate in the PIE field. We'll see what happens." Bexley nodded at the light bee as he fished out a few wires and twisted them together with another set from the PIE. "I think this has got a bit of the Silo mainframe in it. It's got a bit of Dave in it. Maybe it'll call your Dave out _here_."

"That's a lot of 'we'll sees' and 'maybes'." Kochanski frowned.

"That's the PIE, yeah?"

"Who's James?"

"Dave's grandson. Silo's Captain. Omega Group Leader. Yeah."

Kochanski considered this. "How's he involved?"

"Me original—that's the original Dave Lister, yer son I believe—somehow used the PIE to resurrect the entire Red Dwarf. He disappeared a long time ago, but he's reappearing soon. Here, probably. It's about where he disappeared. When he does he'll find James, who was his clone, waiting for him. He raised him as a son. Ace arranged it so that James is still alive when he meets his father. He was hopin' Dave would be alive too. To meet his son."

"I don't understand."

"Ace spent a lotta time travelin' the dimensions after he stole Red Dwarf. He saw things. Said he killed James more times then he could count and the same thing kept happenin' over and over. So instead of keepin' Dave away, he brought him to. And he didn't kill James." Bexley sighed. "He told me this hundreds of times. I never remembered."

"Why?"

"James corrupted me short term memory and screwed around with me sense of meself. He used me… to keep Ace prisoner." Bexley paled. "He used me." His hands clenched over his hand rests.

"I'm sorry. I mean, about the questions." She glanced back at the Silo. "Dave's in there. Rim—" she choked. "How can he meet his… our son now?"

"I don't know." Bexley stared out the cockpit. "Maybe the universe doesn't want to be saved."

Kochanski lapsed into silence. She felt numb. "You said you knew me before?"

Bexley tightened and grew quiet.

Kochanski slipped down the back of the command chair, curling over her knees.

"I married yeh."

Kochanski blanched. "Oh. I don't know what to say—"

"Don't expect yeh teh say anythin'." Bexley turned to look at her. His eyes were mournful. "It's hard seein' yeh. Again."

The Silo shuddered. Kochanski pulled herself up to get a better view of it. A gentle "wumph" filled the space around her.

"That's it," Bexley said. He flicked open the PIE release. He leaned back, catching Kris behind the neck and kissing her.

As he turned back to the controls, she touched her lips.

"Bye, Kris. It was good seein' yeh." He pressed the button.

(ooo)

Lister sat, naked except for a towel, beside Alpha. "So how does this work?" he asked, holding Alpha's hand and Kel's.

Alpha pulled a bottle of marijuana gin from behind the banana bean bag and poured a shot with his free hand into air. A glass formed around the liquid.

"That's how, eh? Brutal." Lister took his shot. "Where's all the others?"

"Around," Kel replied, knocking back his gin.

Lister followed suit. As soon as it hit the back of his throat, he was_there_. "Fast."

Alpha grinned and offered up the bottle as cheers.

Lister offered up his own glass. His arm extended out into the infinite space suddenly replacing the closet's back wall. He watched tens of thousands of Listers offering their own cheers, like an army salute that stretched forever. Even with so many, there still was room in the back wall for more. His mouth went dry. He shivered and lowered his arm. "There yeh are," he said, hushed.

"Dave?"

Lister glanced behind himself. Kris, still wearing Bexley's jersey, stared down at him. "Where are you going?"

"Don't know," Lister grinned.

"I know where you're going. I can't come, Dave. Did you know that?"

"Naw." Lister said. He let his hand drop to his knee. "Is that true?"

Kris nodded, quiet and solemn. "If you go, I'll miss you."

Lister's stomach flopped. He winced. "Kris…" How could he leave her, with her looking at him like that? Like a lost puppy? Lister pushed himself to his knees.

Kel's hand tightened over his. Lister glanced over and Kel inclined his head back to the line of other Lister's.

All of them had a Kris, beseeching them.

Lister felt sick. He glanced back at Kris. Then at Kel. "She's not mine."

Kel shook his head.

"Sorry, Kris," Lister said, and motioned for Alpha to pour him another shot before he lost his nerve. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the other Listers do the same.

"Dave," Kris spoke as he lifted the shot to his lips. Her eyes were wet. "I'll miss you."

Lister swallowed his glass, feeling like he was drinking a cactus knob.

Kris vanished.

"I killed me girlfriend." Lister muttered into his glass. "What now?"

"Yeah, yeah. Feel that?" Alpha set the bottle down.

"What?" Before he could finish the question Lister felt it. Something had shifted inside him. He noticed something above himself and turned to look.

It was Kris. The other Kris. The one from the other dimension. She lay above him on the closet ceiling.

She was frail. Her skin translucent, her body swollen. Her eyes were circled with dark. She looked down at him and that was the worst part. She looked like she was dying and thought he was a hallucination.

"Kris," Lister whispered.

Alpha grabbed his arm. "Yeah. This is good, yeah. Tell her she can't sleep and yeh'll be with her soon."

"What?"

"She has teh step out of her dream, yeah? All the way."

"I don't get it."

"Just tell her, yeah?"

Lister looked up at Kris. In the face of her stricken, horrified look, he grabbed onto Alpha's words. "Kris, I—" He swallowed. "You can't sleep. I'll see yeh soon. Okay? But yeh have teh step outteh yer dream, right? All the way out."

_I can't Dave. That's impossible._

Lister turned to Alpha. Alpha shrugged.

Kris's hopeless eyes terrified him. He bluffed. "It's not, Kris. It'll make sense. I promise."

_I don't know_—

He let go of Alpha's hand and pushed to his feet, reaching out for her. She reached out for him, but she could only lift her hand an inch.

Lister jumped.

"Yeah, yeah!" Alpha cheered. "Bring all yer selves together!"

Lister struggled against the friction. Something was holding him back. He tried to force himself through it. It wouldn't budge.

He had an idea. A slow breaststroke lifted him up. And with each motion of his arms, he felt himself ravel back together, all the separate_hims_ waking up in his mind. Bexley. Kel. Even the original Dave, his own son. And a dark one, distant and sullen, constrained in metal.

A final breaststroke and he was right below her. He smiled. "Hi."

_Hi._She smiled back and this time she was able to catch his hand.

(ooo)

Kochanski blinked. Bexley had seemed so sure something would happen. But nothing did. The Red Dwarf still lay below them, and the Silo rose above it, moving towards them.

"Kris?" Bexley turned back to her.

"Yes?" she asked.

"I can't believe… I'm back with yeh!"

"Yes, Bexley." Kris sighed. "I suppose it's a bit startling that nothing happened."

"What are yeh talkin' about?"

"Well, we started out in the Wildfire and we're still in the Wildfire."

Bexley shook his head. "I was on the Silo, Kris. I was in a… virtual world, like Better Than Life."

Kochanski stared at him. "Wait… are you Dave?"

"Yeah!" Dave nodded vigorously. "Who's Bexley?"

"Never mind." Kochanski slipped her arms around his shoulders. "I missed you! I thought I'd never see you again."

Dave hesitated. He grabbed Kochanski's hands in his own. "Yeah. So what's happenin'?"

Kochanski's throat tightened. "Arnold's…" She couldn't finish the sentence.

"What?" Dave paled. "Dead?"

She nodded, pressing her fist against her lips.

"Erm." Dave slumped. He had a glassy look that made Kochanski nervous and sick. "I—"

"He died saving you. Or who he thought was you." Kochanski continued. "I was told… if we got to the PIE we might get him back. Ressurect him, I mean. Again."

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah."

"So we should go to the Silo?"

Dave pressed his hands against his eyes. He shook his head and let his hands drop. "Naw. Not the Silo. My grandfather's ship, yeah? That's the PIE we'd need. Our son's."

"How'd we get there? I mean, before James kills us?"

"Don't know," Dave said.

Kochanski glanced out at the Silo, and couldn't take her eyes off the ugly length of the Silo's hooked length, slicing towards them like a blade. Would James take them hostage or simply turn them into fifty cubic meters of debris? The proximity alarm started screeching. Kochanski closed her eyes.

"Look!" Dave pointed to the left side of the Wildfire canapé.

Another craft—looking like a twisted steel filing against the gun metal grey of the Silo's bulk—pirouetted in front of them. It was a twin to the Wildfire—a jet-engine type fighter craft.

"Who's that?" Kochanski leaned over Dave to call up a report on the Wildfire scanners. The thing might as well have been made of lead. It registered as a mass and nothing more.

The ship—whoever it was—was moving faster then the Silo, gaining on_them_.

"Is this good news or bad?" Kochanski tried another scan, this time with a pulse charge detonation.

The new ship was hollow. That's all she could tell.

Two magnetic harpoons spagettied towards them, catching them with a shuddering _thunk_.

Another 'wumph' and the world around them dissolved.

(ooo)

Artificial gravity relieved Kochanski of the acid burn she always got at the back of her mouth in zero-G. It made her now knotted and frizzy hair even worse. She tried to bat it down and finger comb it, then laughed, absurdly. _Who cares?_

"Are yeh okay?" Dave asked.

"No. But… I've a feeling we'd better keep moving if we want to live." She reached for the Wildfire canopy's manual release. They were in some sort of giant, dark chamber. A single spotlight illuminated the Wildfire but otherwise there was no light.

"Should we open it?" Kochanski looked at Dave.

He shrugged. "No warning lights."

She popped the seal on the canopy, lifted and took a deep breath. It was air. Moist and clean. She waited for Dave to haul himself out of the cockpit and down the ladder.

She followed.

At the bottom of the ladder Kochanski looked around the hanger. It was smaller then Red Dwarf's and there were no surface to land vehicles to be seen. It was empty and dark except for the spotlight on the Wildfire.

As soon as her feet hit the ground an amber LED path lit up in front of them. It meandered through the hangar towards a door. Kochanski looked at Dave. He glanced back at her and shrugged again.

They followed the yellow lit road.

(ooo)

"I'm going to have to start braiding it." Kochanski'd given up on doing anything with her matted hair.

"Yeah. Gets a bit mussed in a scrape." Dave tugged at his dreads. Then he remembered and shrugged. "Never had a problem. Unless Rimmer_gave_ me a…" Dave trailed off.

Kochanski said nothing. Silence stretched between them like a thin glass bubble. She couldn't say anything to break it. If Arn's… If Arnold remained unspoken… Unthought. Unacknowledged. They could keep moving. "Do you think there's an end to this?" She asked finally.

Dave gazed along the twisting and twirling LED light path and shook his head. "I don't know."

"It has to have an end."

"I don't know nothin' anymore." Dave's face was hard. He'd stopped smiling since… since before the StarTransit™ drop.

Kochanski missed it. His winning-score smile that could light up a room. It was infectious, as much as she tried to ignore it, and the energy of it went right to her head. But now there was only _this_ man, a grim, unsmiling version of Dave. Probably a perfect counter-part for the grim, unsmiling version of Kochanski walking beside him. She frowned. When it was all over, she'd indulge herself a long, sweaty depression. "It has to end," Kris concluded. "What's happening with the Silo and Red Dwarf, do you think?" Kris bit her lip. Why was she suddenly so chatty? How would _he_ know any more then her?

"I think the Silo is chewing up Red Dwarf bit by bit and spitting it out again," Dave replied.

Kochanski winced. Somehow the thought of that was uglier then it ought to be.

(ooo)

"So we get to the end of this, then what? Who's waiting for us?"

The path of tiny yellow lights arced upwards, still winding and twisting inanely, into darkness. Kochanski tried to make anything out in the black beyond the path and gave up, shivering.

"Our son," Dave replied.

"Our son?" Kochanski stopped short.

Dave stopped a stride beyond her. "Yeah. Our son." He shook his head.

Kochanski lapsed into silence, defeated. Lister started walking again and she hurried to catch up. "I thought the whole going-back-in-time-to-become-your-own-father thing was as weird as it gets."

"Nothin' is ever 'as weird as it gets'. It just keeps comin' and comin', like a bad joke with no punch-line."

Kochanski watched Dave's back. "So how did our son turn out?" She thought she might feel some sort of maternal _something_… but it was all too strung-out. All she felt was confusion and a distant note of guilt.

"I don't know. But his son's a nutter," Dave said and it sounded like he considered it another in a long string of defeats. "All of this—" He rolled his shoulders, to indicate everything, "It's all because a' him. Our son. He moved heaven and earth to resurrect his Arnold."

"His Arnold?" Kochanski asked.

"The original Arnold… He was _his_ Arnold. They were in love, or summit. Love." Dave repeated the word. "But Arnold died."

The note of guilt grew stronger. "Do you think _we_ did that to him?"

"What?"

"Do you think…" she felt sick, "I mean. We left him under a pool table and he never found out _why_. We abandoned him. Maybe that's why he couldn't—"

Dave closed his eyes. "Yeah. Thought of that."

(ooo)

The path of amber light ended. Kochanski couldn't see anything beyond it.

Dave edged his foot into the darkness. "There's a drop off."

"How deep?" Kochanski craned into the dark.

"Don't know. Let's find out." Dave caught her hand. They stepped out over the edge.

(ooo)

Things faded into reality. A floor. Walls. Two sofas colored twenty-three-ten neon-earth in paisley—old, worn and patched with duct tape. Kochanski took a seat and watched as Dave prodded the staticy outlines of _nothing_ where furniture—a lamp? A coffee table?—ought to be.

She realized someone was sitting beside her and turned.

Dave Lister stared at her. At least Dave Lister as he would be in forty years. His brown eyes were sharp, his body weathered but lean and strong, his dreads greying.

"Hello," Kochanski offered.

Her greeting met hard silence. He examined her the way a vivisectionist would examine a hamster.

She continued. "You're my son, right?"

"Yeah."

Dave turned to his original self and his son, catching Kochanski's hand. "Hi," He said.

"Hi."

"I had to leave you."

"Yes," their son replied. "Otherwise I would never have existed at all."

"But all this—" Dave opened his arms. "The Silo. Bexley._James_. You put all of it into motion."

"No," their son shook his head. "_You_ put all of it into motion.""

"But, I—" Dave slumped, defeated. "What can I do to make it better?"

Their son shrugged. "There's nothin' yeh can do. Nothin' yeh should do. Yer not obligated to me."

"But yeh just said—"

"Had a long time to think—talking to the PIE—and come to realize that none of it was yer fault. Yeh believed, when yeh left me, that I would _be_ you. I'd have yer life. An' I would understand, in time. You weren't aware that I'd live every second a' the years between that choice and this moment. An' nearly every one of them in the dark gropin' toward the light."

Kochanski touched Dave's shoulder. "Isn't there anything we can do?"

"To be honest?" Their son glanced from Kochanski to Dave. "Seein' you like this, young and confused…" His eyes gleamed. "Things're already settled." He stood and clapped his hands. "Let's finish this."

Someone materialized beside Kochanski. She turned to look and saw James. The man seemed frozen but his eyes recognized their son, his father, and narrowed.

"Yeh want teh destroy the universe in a spectacular murder-suicide," the original Dave Lister said. "Yeh hate me so much. Yeh hate yerself for bein' part me," He continued. There was no triumph in his voice, only resignation. "Today, I'm gonna end it."

Lister waved his hand. A podium appeared with a simple square button in the centre. "The PIE drive. _Me_ PIE drive." He stepped between it and James. "Take it from me."

Another wave of their son's hand and the James crumpled to the floor. He jumped to his feet and lunged for his father.

Kochanski watched them struggle. The Voter-Colonel appeared younger, but their son was cannier and—at any rate—whatever technology had kept them alive for millions of years, also kept them evenly matched in strength.

She felt a hand on her cheek and looked up. Dave had quietly come to her side. He looked down at her, the weight of all his mistakes in his eyes and nothing of that winning-score smile she loved. At least in_her_ Dave.

"Don't," she said. "Look on the bright side? Right? That's what you do?"

"Yeah," he said. "But now I think… maybe it was just a way to avoid seeing the side that was right in front of me."

Kochanski glanced at original Lister, who was currently fighting out of the James's half-nelson. "I've got to do something." She stepped towards them.

Dave caught her arm. "Kris, they're both too strong—"

She pulled out of his grip and jumped away before he could grab her again. Original Lister was choking, looking about fit to black out. Kochanski caught James' arm, trying to pull him away. His arm didn't budge. It didn't budge the way an iron girder embedded in five feet of poured concrete wouldn't budge.

The two of them shifted and James' shoulder knocked into Kochanski's chest. She skid to a gasping stop by the couch.

Dave knelt beside her, helping her sit. "No point, Kris. Yeh might as well be fightin' a star transport."

"I… have…" Kochanski closed her eyes. She couldn't catch her breath. "Dave… My Dave. I won't…"

"You won't get back to him?" Dave supplied. "You could use the PIE—"

"No!" She pointed at James. Lister was free and circling James, who watched him without moving. James punched Lister. Lister dodged and James punctured the half-inch thick titanium bulkhead behind him.

"I don't even think we could dent 'em." Dave lapsed into silence.

Kochanski moved to her knees. "Isn't there something—"

James pinned original Lister against the bulkhead, raising him up along the wall, his hands around the other man's throat. Original Lister scrabbled at James's arms, trying to find leverage, purchase.

"I'm going to…" James faltered. Then pressed harder into Lister's neck. "I'm stronger then you now."

"Are you?" Original Lister gasped.

"Y…yes." Even as James said it, his grip loosened. Original Lister slid to his feet, then fell to his knees. James continued, "I'll kill you."

"Then do it," original Lister said, crouched at his son's feet, not looking up.

James dropped to his knees beside original Lister. He stared at the floor. "I… just… I didn't think… we'd meet." James' tears pooled between his hands.

Kochanski jumped and ran towards the PIE.

"Wait, Kris—"

She hit the button.

(ooo)

Dave listened to the Starbug engine. He'd heard an unusual vibration earlier in the day and he was trying to track down the source. It was nothing. He hoped. He could survive a life-systems failure—being hardlight—but not Kris.

He grimaced at his psy-scan monitor. He kept doing _that_. Thinking she was still aboard and not whisked off into a parallel dimension with a laddish version of himself. Well, Cat then. Do it for Cat. He shook his head, blinked back tears and ran the sound sample through the psyscan's diagnostic Fourier transform. It came back mauve.

Mauve? Dave glanced at the colour coded engine error chart. Mauve fell between red—core meltdown eminent, ejection procedures initiated—and purple—central vacuum exhaust clogged. Mauve didn't seem to have it's own entry. Then again the colour might be a particularly red shade of _puce_. Dave brought the psy-scanner up, closer to the bluish light fixture. Mauve? Puce?

"Dave?"

He turned. Kris stood, half shadowed, looking at him—shyly—from the hatch-way back to the cockpit. Dave stepped forward, then stopped, baffled. "How did you? Where?"

Kris shook her head. "I don't know. I remember—another Dave, more then one, they were fighting—"

Dave rushed her, pulling her into a hug. She hugged him back after a moment's pause.

"It doesn't matter," he whispered into her hair. His eyes filled with tears. "You're home."

She seemed to stiffen a bit at that word.

"What's wrong?" He held her at arm's length.

Kris looked around her, still subdued and uncertain. She shrugged. "Ask me later."

"Do the others know?"

"I saw them before you. Kryten told me where you were. We should go back, Kryten's making something for us—" She turned.

Dave caught her hand. "Before you go, tell me what colour you think this is…" He tilted the psy-scanner monitor towards her.

"That? Oh, it's burgundy. The light is a bit high on the Kelvin scale, gives everything a blue tinge."

Dave grinned. "I knew you'd have the answer. You're perfect." He leaned over to kiss her cheek and checked burgundy on the chart. "It's nothing. Just a solar panel servo that's catching. Routine maintenance."

Kris smiled.

He closed up the psy-scanner. "Let's go see what Kryten's cooking up for us!"

She slipped her hand in his and they ducked through the hatchway to the galley. Dave glanced over the landing. Kryten was puttering in the kitchen, stirring this, throwing a sprig of home-grown herb into the pot, checking whatever he had in the oven.

They descended the stairs, the galley filled with the smell of cinnamon and cloves.

"Whatever you've got on, it smells wonderful," Dave commented.

"Sir!" Kryten beamed up at them. "I found a mechanoid chef's chip in our last salvage. This'll be a feast to celebrate Miss Kochanski's safe return." He rubbed his hands together joyfully.

Dave walked down the stairs, stowing the psy-scanner on the counter by the bottom landing. "I'm sure it'll taste grand."

"And for you, ma'am… I've accessed some old recipes I had stored in the creaky recesses of my database." Kryten chuckled at his own joke. "I'm making apple crumble."

"Oh." Kris blinked. "That's loaded with carbs."

"Is it?" Kryten's head jerked back and forth. "Shall I make you something else, ma'am? I believe I have cottage cheese and pineapple, I just thought I might, for a change of pace—"

"No." Kris pushed past Dave and sat at the table. "What you're cooking is fine."

She seemed agitated. Dave moved over to her side and started to rub her shoulders. "You must have been through so much—"

"Stop it," Kris snapped.

Dave's hands recoiled from her back. "I'm sorry."

"Stop_that_." She waved at him. "Don't say you're sorry, say I'm being tetchy."

"What? I wouldn't…"

She turned towards Kryten. "Why aren't you throwing snide little comments at me?"

"Ma'am, I would never dream of being rude to you!"

That answer seemed to agitate Kris even more. She got up from her chair; it fell to the ground behind her with a bang. Dave caught her arm, then pulled her close, trying to sooth her. "What's wrong?"

She relaxed a touch in his arms.

"I'm just… feeling out of sorts."

Dave caught the chair back and lifted it into place. He ushered her to sit. "Of course you are. We'll have a good meal and then—" he squeezed her arm and winked.

"The Opera Game!" Kryten jittered with excitement.

Behind the mechanoid's back Dave rolled his eyes. Kris offered up a smile, but she still fidgeted, biting her fingernails.

"Did someone say the Opera Game?" The Cat materialized out of thin air, stepping into a tight little spin. "I'm up for a game. And up whatever it is you're cooking, Kryten. It smells so good. Yaow!"

Dave grinned at Cat's antics and sat down at the table beside Kris. Everything was fine. It had to be. Kris was back. "It's wonderful to have you back, Kris. It's like a dream."

Kris stood, her face drained of colour.

"Kris" Dave stood. "What's wrong?"

She bolted from the galley. Kryten and Cat stared after her. Dave followed.

The corridor beyond the galley was empty. Dave ran to the end and found the storage doors open.

Inside the storage bay, Kris sat on a crate, staring at her hands.

"What's wrong?" Dave caught Kris's hand. She didn't meet his eyes.

"I can't stay." Kris replied. "You don't need me—"

"We do!" Dave countered.

"No. I needed _you_. I needed _you_ to need me. And you all provided. But you don't need me. You'll do fine without me. You'll be better then fine. I know." Kris stood. She looked at Dave and her eyes shone. "I've got to get back. _He_ needs me."

"Why?"

"I don't even know if this is real. I never did. I always thought… in the back of my mind… what if? What if I'm still in that virtual reality world, that perfect world my parents put me in? I don't even know, here. I don't know if I'm alive or dreaming."

"Kris…" Dave's shoulders slumped. He couldn't catch her gaze. "What about Red Dwarf? The accident, me dying, you surviving by being in stasis—"

"Who knows?" Kris caught the side of his face. "I don't want a dream anymore."

Dave laughed, nervous. "We're far from perfect—"

"No, you _are_. Even having little imperfections that I can fix _is_ perfect."

"This isn't what you want?"

Kris shook her head.

Dave swallowed. His next words dragged out of him. "Then I have to let you go."

She bowed her head and shook it, as if that had been the final test and he'd failed. Dave panicked, wishing he could take back the words. What did she _want_? What?

"Goodbye, Dave." Kris looked crushed.

(ooo)

"Don't leave Fiji." John stood, silhouetted against the glaring sun in Dave's front yard.

His words pulled at Dave. Still, Dave resisted. "I can't stay."

John shook his head and turned away, walking down the path to his transport. Dave knew he had a ticket back to the Ganymede station, or maybe Io, an open fare he could cash in any time.

Dave watched him walk away, and watched the man's back get tighter with each step. John was turning into a permanent chiropractic patient._Because of me,_ Dave thought.

His own lower back twinged. He'd given up gardening because of the pain. He'd been told it was due to tension in his shoulders; he'd never had it before Arn's death.

Not after, either. Not till the day Arn's hologram 'woke' up on Fiji, saw Dave smiling at him, and acted like nothing had happened between them. And nothing _had_. At least for _him_.

John ducked into his transport. Dave watched it back up and turn.

Arn had left the same way. No, not the same way. He'd left wanting to end it.

The transport gathered speed.

Dave stiffened. "Wait!"

He began to run. "Wait!"

For a long moment he chased the transport. He knew he wouldn't catch it, even when it slowed to make the turn onto the main road.

When it disappeared it left him most of the way down his drive. Dave kept going. Even in his fifties, he could still run a fair ways. And he did. Knowing it was hopeless.

"Wait, John!" He called, turning the corner.

Beyond the thick bank of trees he saw the transport. It was pulled over, waiting. His heart lifted.

John was trotting back towards him. Looking resigned, but maybe a bit hopeful. "Yes?" he said.

Dave stared at him. "Yeh might be right. About Fiji. I worked hard to get here. It was my dream, yeh see?"

John laughed. "I know. To have a farm on Fiji with a horse and sheep."

"And Kristine Kochanski in a white dress."

"That didn't work out."

"Naw. It didn't." Dave grinned. "It worked out for one of me." He considered. "But maybe what I wanted was a farm on Fiji and someone to share it."

"Can you live without him?" John's voice was subdued.

"Livin' without him's not the problem. Have to do that either way. Livin' and seein' what's right in front of me is the problem."

"He might come back to you," John said. They turned the corner to the driveway.

"Yeah," Dave said. "So, what do you say? Do you want to live on Fiji with me?"

"Me?" John said. Then shook his head. "I would have said yes five years ago."

Dave frowned. "You _would_ have?"

"I don't know if I believe you can let him go completely. It's been hard to watch." John worked his lip between his teeth. "Hard to be part of."

"Yeah, but—"

"I think you need to choose someone else to share it." John watched Dave sadly.

"Who?"

John glanced towards the house. "You better go see if Jim's okay. He's been depressed the entire time I've been here."

"Depressed?" Dave asked.

John shook his head and turned away from Dave. "I've got to go if I want to catch my flight."

"If yeh come back, bring somethin' white to wear," Dave called after him.

John stopped. He bowed his head for a moment. "I will."

Dave didn't wait to watch him leave. Instead he jogged back towards the house, biting back tears.

Jim'd be in his room. Dave knew that at least. He entered, letting the door swing shut with a bang. He walked past the draw-string that brought down the ladder to the attic and paused, looking up. Arnold was gone. For good. Nothing he'd done had brought back his Arnold. He was dead.

Dead. Dave turned the word over in his mind. Everything that could be said and done, had been said and done. Dead.

The word brought with it stillness. Dave had cried and fought and tried so hard. He had nothing left to feel.

"Jim?" Dave called out, walking to Jim's door and knocking lightly. There was no answer.

"Jim, I know you're in." Dave thought he should knock again, give the boy time to come round. He turned, then felt a wave of panic. Something was wrong. He pulled Jim's door open and stepped inside.

Jim had a needle poised above his arm. He looked up at Dave.

Dave rushed towards him, slapping the needle out of his hand. "What do you think yer doin'?"

Jim recoiled. "I— It's just that vaccine I told you about—"

"That stuff… It could kill yeh!" Dave shook with fury. He grabbed Jim and hugged him. "What would I do with out yeh?"

"Me?" Jim gasped.

"Yeah, you." Dave he caught Jim's shoulders and held him at arm's length. "Yer my boy, yeah? No matter how yeh came about." Dave hugged Jim again, crying. "I screwed up, not you."

"I wanted you to be happy."

"Look. You aren't responsible for me. I'm responsible for _you,_" Dave said. "You're responsible for _you_."

Jim watched him. He was still strangely young for sixteen.

"Tell me what you want? What'll make you happy? You don't have to go to college."

"I want to go."

"Then I'll be here, waiting for you to come back."

"I want you to be happy."

"Then I'll be happy," Dave promised, and saying it made the pressure in his chest ease. "I'll do the things that make me happy. And yeh do the things that make you happy."

"You'll garden?"

"Yeah. And I'll ride Jangles."

"You'll get sheep."

Dave laughed. "Yes. I'll get sheep. No. I'll get goats. A goat. And a cow. Is that okay?"

"You'll invite John?"

"I'll invite John. He'll no longer have to invite hisself."

"Good." James smiled.

(ooo)

Bexley stepped into the Red Dwarf's hanger. The PIE had asked him where he wanted to go, and he'd told it.

The ship rocked and echoed with the sounds of explosions. The lights flickered: even the emergency generators had been compromised.

Bodies, not human from the smell of them, littered the hangar floor. An entire battalion of Company Simulants, dead.

Bexley upholstered his gun as he poked through the smoking corpses, looking for a lone human body.

He didn't find one. Perhaps that nutter Ackerman had managed to survive. No matter. Bexley had a job to do.

"I've come back to kill yeh, Ace," he shouted into the empty hangar. A footfall echoed behind him.

He turned, gun ready.

(ooo)

Kochanski woke. She brought her hands up and they wobbled into view, two claws on swollen arms. She panicked, tried to rise and fell back, too weak to move.

Slowly she traced her shoulder with her finger-tips, then her neck and jaw, moving up to touch the wires sprouting from her temple. The shock of wire sticking out of her skull jump started a stream of tears. She gasped and sobbed and then nearly fainted from exhaustion.

She remembered. She'd been unplugged from her perfect childhood. She'd maintained for a few years. Then the one-two knock-out punch. Her mother disappearing into nothing. Her Dave, her real Dave, dying in a navi-comp accident. The awful letter that began, "We regret to inform you…" and ended "died tragically."

She'd gone on leave on Mimas. At some point she'd wandered into a skuzzy back-street game parlor.

Kochanski laughed. Then she coughed till she couldn't breathe. Her mind had made up _her_ Dave and _her_ Cat and _her_ Kryten. Created a world she could be the centre of. And a disaster to rid herself of everything that had hurt her.

And, somehow, that hadn't been good enough, so her mind had created_another_ set of Dave, Kryten and Cat. A grittier set with more flaws and fewer answers. And the game, protecting itself, had hid all that from her.

Kochanski raised one arm and looked at it. It was wasted, nearly useless. And although she knew she should be cold, lying as she was on a thin mattress in a room with half a wall missing, she felt warm. Very warm and relaxed and if she just let go, it would all fade away into nothing.

_Kris._

Above her, if she looked closely, she could see Dave. Not _her_ Dave, but Dave. Staring back at her in shock.

_I'm tired, _she thought.

_Kris, I— _Her hallucination of Dave paused, swallowing. _Yeh can't sleep. I'll see yeh soon. Okay? But yeh have teh step outteh yer dream, right? All the way out. _

It was too real. Her body dying around her, the tinny taste of weeks of starvation in her mouth. The pins and needles in her finger tips. How could _everything around her_ be real, and him still be there? It made no sense. She'd invented him. _That_ made sense.

"I can't, Dave." Kris's chest heaved. "That's impossible."

_It's not, Kris. It'll make sense. I promise._

"I don't know—"

He reached out for her. She reached out for him, but her claw only teetered a bit on her wrist.

Dave struggled against something. He started a breaststroke. It was slow, as if he was moving through honey. But he got close. Close enough to almost touch. He smiled down at her. _Hi. _

"Hi." She smiled back and this time she was able to catch his hand. With her real hand. The hand that slid out of her dying body like new skin lifting away from an old scab. She stepped all the way out and looked back.Her body was in the midst of a seizure, it thrashed. She felt beyond that, felt out an explanation.

She had created Dave and he was real. She dreamed, he lived.

Kochanski watched her body empty; she emptied with it.

(ooo)

Lister had thought—well, he'd thought that Kris activating the PIE meant they'd all be killed. Instead he was alive—as far as he knew—and everyone else was stuck fast, immobile.

Lister turned to Kochanski. She stood still. Not even blinking. Lister pulled on her arm, slapping her cheek. Nothing woke her. Under his hand her skin still felt warm and alive.

He stepped up to the PIE engine and tried to hit the switch himself. No matter what he did, it didn't move. He looked down at James and leapt back with a yelp.

James was gone.

Craning his neck over the place James _had_ been, Lister tried to search for clues to where he'd gone. Nothing. Not even a sign that he'd _been_ there in the first place. He glanced at Kris. She still stood, frozen.

"Dave."

Lister turned around. His son was awake and stepping towards him. Around them the room dissolved; Kris spun out and elongated, becoming his only axis of reference in a blank, empty world. Lister started to panic, relaxed into the panic and relaxed into the changes— _let it all flow. Like a dream. Or a trip._

"This is the PIE," original Lister explained.

"Huh?"

"It says, 'I want to use Dave Lister to do what needs to be done.'"

"What's that?"

Original Lister popped out of existence. It seemed like he'd _wanted_ to explain, but hadn't the time.

Lister's head exploded painlessly—words, gestures, whole personalities were rushing in. He was losing himself in the chaos. He reached out to Kris. Somehow he'd gotten so large, he was holding her in the palm of his hand. As soon as he'd connected, he was whirling around her—she was his centre—as he etched out the shape of the universe.

He flattened and expanded, contracted in some places, blew up in others and everything became very, very light.

When it was done, Dave Lister stepped through the pivot point, into a new universe—another set of infinite dimensions—an answer to his question: _Why'd I butcher that smeggin' camphor wood chest?_


	30. Author's Note 2

Author's Note

Thanks to all the people who have read thus far. It's been an interesting ride. Unfortunately the scope of the project makes the beta-ing a huge task in and of itself. Probably far too big to expect from someone who isn't paid to do it. (Thanks muchly to my betas who didn't look at the size of this thing and run the other way.) I tried to get everything as consistent as possible, but I suffer from the same problem all writers do. I'm too close to the work to see all the flaws.

If there are any logical inconsistencies, problems or questions about the story, please tell me so I can correct them. I really went to town with the plotting of this thing(never again!) and the amount of paradoxes in it breaks my brain.

I will be writing an epilogue, as hinted at in one of the chapters. Right now my creative momentum is moving in a different direction in a different fandom(Halo slash! Wee!). So I'm going to get some distance from this project and chew over what shape universe Lister's question would make. Then come back to it when I've got a good answer. If anyone wants anything else in this story elaborated through writing, please ask. I'll do my level best to address such requests.

To those of you who've been following my personal story, I figure you deserve to have some closure. My mother died in October. There's not much more I can say about it. (It took me this long to say that.)

This story has been a lot of fun to write. Some days it was the only thing that got me out of bed. It's convoluted and weird and probably crosses quite a few fandom boundaries, but it got me through a rough time and I hope others got(will get) some enjoyment out of it as well.

Thanks for reading.

P.S. I accidentally labelled "Voter-colonel" as having 'explicit sexual situations', should have just been 'sexual situation.' Sorry to everyone who expected more.

P.P.S. Red Dwarf doesn't belong to me. (Yay for Captain Obvious!) I don't own any of the characters in this novel, except for Dr. Valley, Deputy Harlen, Seargent Briggs, the named Simulants, the named convicts and all the various unnamed minor characters. And I really don't own them either since they're all archetypal or stereotypal characters: the indifferent doctor, the real power behind the throne, the down-to-earth military man, the crazy killing machine, the comedic yet sinister criminal, and all the other no-existance-outside-of-plot characters. Yeah.

P.P.P.S. The original first draft of this piece included a non-con scene that I am now the exact opposite of proud of. My apologies for putting it out for public consumption. It was thoughtless and unpalatable. Never again.


	31. Epilogue

Jangles snorted, dipping his head to rub his nose against his knee. Dave gave the gelding his head and resettled himself in the saddle, waiting. The road forked and he was watching one path.

Town was a mile off from Dave's homestead—half a mile off from the fork in the forest road. His homestead was a cinder block house on top of a hill over looking a river valley, identical to his setup on Fiji. Except for the climate. Where they were, where they'd ended up, was mild and wet: semi-tropical with heavy, clumping winter snow, monsoon springs and brilliant summers.

Jangles ears pricked. He lifted his head away from the tuft of blue grass he'd been chomping on. A moment more and Dave heard the distant whine of a motorbike. He leaned over the saddle horn and smiled. He'd felt expectant all morning and now he knew why.

The motorbike drew closer. Jangles eyes showed a bit of white from the noise and Dave patted his neck.

When the motorcyclist turned the bend and saw them, he slowed. When he got within fifty meters he stopped, got off his motorcycle and walked the rest of the way. He was tall, broad-shouldered. Dave knew he'd be tan and blond.

The man found a bit of hard packed dirt and flicked out the kickstand of his motorcycle with his boot. He trotted the last few meters to stand just off the side from Jangles and took off his helmet.

Ace—not that Dave had expected anyone else.

"Hi, old chum." Ace said, grinning.

"When did yeh arrive?"

"Not sure. Feels like I've always been here." Ace glanced back the way he came. "I ran into a bit of trouble back there…" He hesitated. "Some sort of indigenous people. They were going to kill me—"

"Cat's tribe." Dave chuckled. Cat's greatest regret, apparently, was not being the chieftain of a clan of Amazonian warrior-women. Now he was. "We trade with them."

"Trade? For what?"

"We give them a quarter of our fall catch. They don't shoot us. How'd you escape?"

"Eh." Ace picked a cheroot out of his pack and slipped it between his lips. "The usual way." He winked and lit his smoke.

"Ah." Dave nodded.

"So that way's to town?" Ace pointed down one prong of the fork. "Is it long?"

"Probably ten minutes by motorcycle."

"Who's there?"

"Lots of folk. Kryten. Bob. Ackerman and Thorton are bizzies. Hollister's mayor."

Ace started. "What?"

Dave shrugged. "He's not that bad. Bein' mayor of a little town in the foothills of…" He looked around himself and shrugged again, "Wherever we are, suits him a lot better then bein' captain of a space-vessel." Dave leaned back in his saddle. "He's got his wife back and she does a good job of keepin' him in line."

"Ah." Ace sounded unconvinced. "Doesn't seem fair, that. Didn't he try to off you?"

"That was another universe. Can't hold it against him." Dave resettled himself, looking down past Jangle's shoulder to the dirt beside his left front hoof. "Kris is there."

Without looking at him Dave could feel Ace's sudden tension. Kochanski's main regret had been something about her parents—never knowing them. And she'd got it settled. They now lived not a block apart and, as far as Dave knew, Kochanski had a full complement of childhood memories of them, good and bad. Mostly good. He smiled to himself.

"Are you.. and she…?" Ace swallowed.

"No, mate." Dave laughed. It was strange. Kris and him were about as close as two people could get. The PIE had told him that her paradox—her stepping out of her own dream—and his, being his own grandfather's clone—had formed the two ends of a twisted knot of dimensions. But it wasn't like that. They weren't like that. Him and Kris… they were friends. Dave pinned Ace with a stare. But Ace and Kris? "No."

Ace tipped the ash off his cheroot. "I'm looking for Spanners."

"Big as a house she is." Dave flicked his hand about three feet from his stomach.

"Spanners. Have you seen him?"

Dave wasn't about to let Ace off the hook. "Due any day."

"What does this have to do with—"

"Man." Dave whistled. "Denial."

"Look, I'm not even supposed to be here." Ace whined.

Dave smiled at the Rimmer in Ace. "Yeh thought you'd finally be free? Looks like yer stuck with us."

"I didn't think…"

"That yeh belonged? Well yeh do."

"I'm not even responsible—"

"Don't lie yer arse off." Dave leaned onto his pommel. "I know what yeh got up to on Tween. She wouldn't have gone as far as she did if you hadn't been a part of him. I bet he doesn't even remember—"

"Alright!" Ace threw his hands up. "What about Spanners?"

Dave grinned and snapped the trap shut. "Ask Kris. About _Bexley_."

Ace shook his head. "You've changed."

"I didn't change. Just listen to meself, now."

"Is _he_ here?" Ace glanced at the acoustic guitar slung over Dave's shoulder.

Dave stared down the road. "Don't know."

"I've raveled myself back up, Skipper. There's no part of me in him."

"What makes yeh think I _wanted_ him to be any part you?" It came out harsher then Dave had intended. But then, maybe a bit of deflating was called for.

"Touché." Ace replied. "Still… he'll be back to his cowardly self."

Dave didn't answer for a long while. "There's different kinds of courage, yeah?" He closed his eyes. "Waking up with the same person every day is its own kind of courage. Hollister has it." Dave nodded. That's why he couldn't hate the man. "Maybe it has nothing to do with magnificence. Or it's its own kind of magnificence. Waking up with a real person, not a pipe dream or a fix it project."

Ace pressed on. "His cowardly, charming self."

Dave stared at his friend. "Yer chummy and carin' because yer a chummy and carin' person."

"What's wrong with that?"

Dave glanced past Ace. "It's a defense."

Ace took a drag on his smoke. "Against what?"

"I don't know mate. You tell me."

"Yes, well. As charming as this is." Ace dropped his cheroot and, stepped on it, stubbing it out. "I better be off."

"Yeah." Dave grinned.

Ace turned and walked back to his motorcycle.

Dave called after him. "When yeh love someone, they bring all of yeh out, good and bad. Maybe yer afraid of the bad."

Ace turned, "Wouldn't you? If your bad was _Rimmer_?" He waved, "See you later alligator."

Dave chuckled, waving back.

Ace pulled his helmet on, kick started his motorcycle and drove down the path to the town. Dave soothed Jangles as the bike whined past. Dave watched him go till Ace disappeared around a turn. He didn't know if Ace was going to find a happy ending. Kris had woken up remembering her _Bexley_. And Bexley had never forgotten his Kris.

Ace had run away from the exact same problem in his own dimension. But then, this universe was a bit different, yeah? It was just two parts regret to eight parts gratitude. So maybe Ace would fit this time.

But it wasn't Dave's problem.

Dave thought of Kris' little house in town—a cottage. Who would have thought Kris was so secretly country? Then he thought of the red brick house a block beyond. Kris Senior's house. She was happily married to Todhunter. And quite a bit older then he remembered. When Dave had seen her again, all the regretful what-ifs had settled around his shoulders.

He craned his neck to try and see over the forest, staring past the path to the town. If he squinted he could just make out a halo of pollution and light. The city. He'd been there five or six times. Each time he'd seen John, glimpsed him in a crowd, across a street, through a window. Dave'd run after the man, but John had never turned or stopped no matter how loud Dave shouted and Dave never caught up with him.

Dave tapped Jangles' side. Jangles moved into a reluctant walk. Dave pressed him down the path Ace had come from, away from the town and the city.

If Ace had arrived, then maybe…

Dave urged Jangles faster and the old gelding offered up a jarring trot. The path they followed rose above the tree line, taking them to a high bluff, peppered with thickets of rectangular pods.

Dave's memories slid into place. He remembered falling in love with Arnold after exiting the stasis chamber on Red Dwarf. He remembered leaving Red Dwarf because staying was killing him. He remembered Arnold finally, finally choosing him. No holds barred, choosing him. And then Arnold got killed.

Dave grimaced. It still hurt, that. Through thousands of incarnations the sheer unfairness of it still hurt.

Everything else was just an echo.

Jangles rounded the top of the hill. Dave pulled him to a stop and looked up at the evening sky.

In the universe he ended, dimensions found their genesis in regrets. Perhaps Ace's dimension was the solution to of all Arnold's regrets. Each time Arnold had regretted a failure, he'd spun off a dimension in which that failure wasn't regretted.. But Arnold's dimension had gathered more and more regrets till that was all it was.

The universe Dave had created was the same—splitting into dimensions at regrets—except his dimension seemed to be loosing regrets, split by split.

Dave shook his head. It was hard to fit it all in. Hard to imagine a moment when it _had_ fit.

He slipped off Jangle's back, stepping towards his rectangular crop. He hadn't planted it, but Dave knew it was there because of him.

The smell of camphor wood rose up around him. Just off the path was a very ripe camphor wood chest. He tapped its lid. It was hollow. He looked over the hills beyond, each hill checkered with rows of chests. Thousands of them.

He turned around and sat down, pulling his guitar from behind his back. Dave bent over his instrument. He thought of Kris Senior and John. Either way, he had regrets.

But, this way, the regrets weren't too bad. He could live with them.

Dave fished a pick out of his pocket and strummed a chord. He sang a verse, then a second. Halfway through the third he had to stop. He wiped his eyes with the heels of his hands.

The lid of the chest shifted as another man sat beside him.

"I thought I heard the sound of someone vivisecting a howler monkey. Somethings never change, eh, Listy?"


	32. Author's Note 3

Hi again!

I've been giving it some thought and I might produce a shorter work detailing more of Lister and Rimmer's decompression in this new universe. That is, if you guys are interested.

So if you are, clap your hands and say 'I love fairies.' Or, if you want me to actually know you're interested, leave feedback.

It would be more of a quieter established-relationship-trying-to-figure-out-where-they-stand-now plotline rather then the rolicking jaunt through time and space of 'Last Humans.' 

Thank you all for your feedback. I'm glad you enjoyed it, despite the brain twisting plot and crazy convolutions. 


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